If You Support Progressive Policies, “You Win Elections”

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), explained Tuesday to Democrats that if they want to win this fall’s elections, they must support popular progressive policies such as student debt cancellation and resist the pressure from deep-pocketed donors who want to give large tax breaks to corporations.

In an interviewWith MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, Sanders said that Democratic candidates and lawmakers must position themselves firmly behind the working class and fight against corporate greed, rather than work to feed it.

“If Democrats are going to do well in 2022, in my view, they’ve got to stand up very firmly for working families,” the Vermont progressive said. “Now is the time, if you want to win an election, to say … ‘I’m prepared to take on greedy, powerful corporate interests who are enjoying record breaking profits while you Americans can’t afford health care, can’t afford to send your kids to college and are working for starvation wages.’ That, to my mind, is how you go forward and win.”

He said that Democrats can support policies like student loan relief to be supportive of working families.

“I have the radical idea that good policy is good politics. And it is good policy to cancel student debt in this country,” he said, noting that he would have gone further Joe Biden, PresidentDid in his debt cancellation plan. “If you do what the people want, and not what the corporate world wants, billionaire campaign contributors want, you win elections.”

On the other side, Republican efforts to stop student debt relief from ever reaching borrowers will “hurt them politically,” Sanders said, noting that polls have found Student debt can be cancelledIt is extremely popular.

Progressives have always maintained that they support popular movements. like Medicare for AllOr, you can read more recent versions. The expanding labor movementThis is a powerful way to win political power and support from voters. This theory holds true sharp contrast to the way that modern mainstream political candidates from both major parties run their campaigns, soliciting donations from corporations and rich donors — and perhaps promising benefits to them in return — in order to outspend their opponents and win.

Money is important It is still a powerful forceIn politics recent winsProgressives running against corporate-backed opposition suggest that progressives may be correct in their assessment about the electoral landscape. Even though big donors still successfully defeatProgressive candidates who vow not to take corporate funds, primary wins from progressive candidates like Pennsylvania’s Rep. Summer Lee or Oregon’s Jamie McLeod-SkinnerThis year, people are not following the trend.

Democrats need a boost to keep control of Congress this fall. Recent Polls Have FoundWhile Democrats may be A surgethey have received support from moves like the student loan cancellation plan, but they will need more support to keep their majorities at the Senate und the House.

Sanders also emphasized in his interview that recent successes from the labor movement could be a major vehicle for political change — and an opportunity for Democrats to demonstrate which side they’re on.

The latest news from the potential railroad strike, for instance, has exposed “the most ugly type of corporate greed imaginable” from railroad owners, he said. Workers are often not able to attend work due to strict attendance policies. to take time off if they or their spouses are ill — and workers and rail unions say railroad owners are so adamant in their refusal to acquiesce to workers’ time off demands that they’re willing to riskStifling the U.S. Economy and forcing their workers to strike.

Workers’ willingness to stand up to rail owners and other labor activists’ struggles are a powerful rebuke of growing corporate greed, Sanders said.

“People are standing up, fighting back,” he said. “What you are seeing right now are workers saying ‘enough is enough. You guys on top — you can’t have it all.’ We need an economy that works for all of us. Unions are one vehicle that help people get decent wages and working conditions.”