Straight talk from Bernie

From a Rolling Stone interview with Bernie Sanders:

Here is where the Democratic Party has played a terrible role. And when I talk about 60 percent of people living paycheck to paycheck, a health care system which is broken, a child care system which is broken, a horrific housing crisis of working people who are paying 50 or 60 percent of income on rent. I talked to a woman in Los Angeles paying 70 percent of her income for housing. Where were the Democrats? Where were they?

Do I think Biden did a good job? I did in many respects. But did he and Democrats, in general, understand the enormity of the economic crises that we’re facing, and attempt to address them? No. They did not. Did Obama? Certainly not. Did the Democrats when they controlled the House? No, they did not.

A lot of the reason that so many working-class people are voting Republican is they listen to the Democrats, for years, bullshit about their ‘concern for working people,’ but nothing happened. Really. You tell me. How the hell does that happen? We’re the only major country not to guarantee health care for all people. I live 50 miles away from the Canadian border, they somehow managed to do that. They spend half as much per capita.

How are we the only major country not to provide paid family and medical leave, paid sick leave? It is embarrassingly stupid having the highest rate of childhood poverty in almost any country. So people look around and say, ‘Democrats, you’ve been telling us how concerned you are for us. For years. They didn’t do nothing.’ So these people think: Yes, Trump may be crazy. He may lie all the time, but at least he’s a strong guy, and he may do something — we don’t know.

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