Bernie Sanders: We Need More Working-Class Candidates to Challenge Both Parties

28 comments

1. He’s not wrong, but the way politics works in this country, you can’t even run for president without being rich and having the support of one of the two parties. Frankly our system was destined to fail because of the rot festering since its inception.

2. What exactly is the definition of working class? Whats the income limit? What jobs are acceptable or unacceptable to be considered working class? Im a little fuzzy on the whole “working class” concept as it is fairly nebulous.

3. uh huh, and how is that happening in the Citizens United era??

4. You need money and connections to run. Regular people can’t just hop into the mix and see any level of success. Maybe you could do that for the mayor of a small town, but any bigger than that you will need so much more

5. Voters don’t care about working class candidates – the majority of voters this election voted for the most anti-working class ticket in history.

   People need to stop spouting this working class nonsense because it just isn’t true. It only works *if the working class voters are capable of understanding what policies help or hurt them* and a majority of them have proved they are incapable of that. The minority of working class voters with a brain should be pitied as they will suffer and tried to do the right thing.

   The only hope is that the remaining cadre suffers to a degree that they will realize that the republicans are bad for them.

   This election was a simple cognitive test for the country, and a large chunk of it failed.

6. Ranked-choice voting or something similar. Until then, it’ll always devolve into a two-party system.

   Also on wishlist, limit political campaign spending and length of campaign. Not sure how to accomplish either but would love to see it go the opposite way of the 24/7 entertainment news cycle it is today.

7. I mean Walz is pretty much the most working class background a guy is going to have before running. Unless you want someone going straight from working in a factory to running for president.

8. At least the GOP is willing to throw the hat behind something new – see Nixon (leading up being VP, Reagan, and Trump. It seems like to be a leading Democrat you have to be a loyal lapdog for years, until you finally pass enough purity tests for the DNC to allow you to be their nominee. Just such a failure of a political party. Everyone is sick of these stale Clinton/Obama types that have no charisma. The money and political machine of the Democratic Party has to put itself behind someone authentic and likeable, no more of these super educated goody two-shoes public servants.

9. They need to naturally have a populist form of rhetoric and be unapologetically liberal. Period.

   I think Bernie is implying a populist candidate might lose credibility if they come from an elitist class.

10. It costs money to engage in politics as a candidate so following decades of depressed wages that rules out working class candidates from even trying.  

11. Yeah, republicans won because they have working class candidates.

12. The working class decided bigotry was more important.

13. Working class people don’t have the time or the kind of money you need to run for political office .

14. It’s funny how Democrats need to do all sorts of radical shit to win but Republicans just lie, break laws, and do nothing for the American public and succeed.

    I thought Democratic voters were supposed to be the smart ones?

15. Tim Walz 2028

16. I would if I could, but I’m dead broke and nobody listens to me.

17. Parties are not factories that create candidates out of thin air.

    They need volunteers. People need to volunteer and say “Yes, I’m from the working class and am willing to run as a Democrat”.

    See AOC. She put her name out there and ran in the Democratic primary, and won.

18. We lose everything if we miss a couple paychecks. If you can afford to campaign, I don’t know if you can be considered working class.

19. If Trump establishes a dictatorship, there won’t be any more elections. Or maybe the Putin kind with predetermined outcomes.

20. Bernie needs to fuck off with decisive rhetoric. Kamala ran on working class issues. Waltz is cliche working class. 

    We need a united party  Bernie divides people. He has proven to be unelectable on a national scale. 

21. And millions of dollars

22. I would actually consider running for a state level office, however i only earn $60,000 between my FT job and my PT job.

    How could a person like me even afford to run for office when you have billionaires like Eric Hovde or Tim Michaels can dump millions in campaign funds.

    Thats the reason many common people like me can’t really run. It’s not that we don’t have education or related life experience it the money.

    If they are serious on setting up election reforms to include term limits for all offices then maybe this could occur

23. Sorry bud, too busy working 🤷

24. Bernie needs to stop saying this stuff. There were working class candidates. They were shit on by the right and largely voted out of office. He’s incorrect.

25. Bernie, I love ya and I agree with ya, but you and I both know that this shit can’t change on a larger scale without a nationalized system of ranked-choice voting. A winner-take-all election system is just not a feasible place for third parties or independents to make waves on a national scale.

26. We need a fundamentally different system for that. As a teacher on Long Island I get paid decently and get plenty of time in the summer or at night to campaign if I really wanted to.

    But I doubt I could afford it. And I can’t really risk giving up my job on the possibility of winning a two year term.

    The real working class is in a lot more precarious positions than I am. How the heck could they afford to run?

27. Why would any sane person want to get involved with politics? Let’s be serious.

28. I don’t think that was the problem dude.

    The problem is that one candidate completely sucked and basically didn’t lose any votes.

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