Bernie Sanders has doubled down on his scathing remarks about the Democratic party having “abandoned” working-class voters, despite criticism from longtime friend and allyNancy Pelosi.
The veteran Vermont senator reiterated that the US working class is “angry” but rejected the idea that the issue this election cycle had been with party “messaging.”
In a statement after Donald Trump sailed to victory over Kamala Harris, Sanders wrote that “it should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party, which has abandoned working-class people, would find that the working-class has abandoned them.”
Speaking to The New York Times, former House speaker and Democratic powerhouse Nancy Pelosi then slammed his remarks, saying she did not agree or “respect” them.
Sanders was asked about his comments – and Pelosi’s reaction to them – on the Sunday politics shows, where he said he “absolutely” stood by what he had said.
Speaking to MSNBC’s Meet The Press about Pelosi’s remarks, he said: “Nancy is a friend of mine, and we’ve worked together on many issues, but here is the reality, I have to say to Nancy, in the Senate, in the last two years, we have not even brought forth legislation to raise the minimum wage to a living wage, despite the fact that some 20 million people in this country are working for less than $15 an hour.
“Bottom line, if you’re an average working person out there, do you really think that the Democratic party is going to the mat… and fighting for you? I think the overwhelming answer is no. And that is what it’s got to change.”
In a separate interview on CNN’s State of the Union, Sanders said that President Joe Biden had “kept his word” to working class people but that, as a whole, the demographic “is angry, and they have a reason to be angry.”
Sanders highlighted the current “economic reality” in the US, stating that 60 percent of Americans are “living paycheck to paycheck” and 25 percent of elderly people are getting by on $15,000 or less per year.
“What Donald Trump did is he provided an explanation,” he said, also rejecting the claim that messaging and communication with the working class had been the problem for the Democrats.
“It’s not messaging… It’s a fundamental understanding of saying, look, the Biden administration has done a lot of good things, period. We should all be proud of that, but it has to be put in the broad context of the reality of the American economy today,” he said.
Sanders’s remarks come as the upper echelons of the Democratic party become further embroiled in a blame game following the Harris campaign’s crushing defeat.
A gamut of reasons have since been offered for the cause. Some Democrats think swapping Biden for Harris was the mistake. Others have blamed Biden himself, saying he took far too long to drop out.
Progressives, like Sanders, have pointed to the Biden administration’s stance on Israel and the Harris campaign’s attempts to appeal to moderates and anti-Trump Republicans.
