Bernie Drops Out: The Death of an American Dream

It was February when I sat in a Montreal sandwich shop, typing social media posts away about my excitement and confidence, which oozed over the polls: “Bernie leads Democratic field,” “Senator Sanders projected to win,” and so on. As I munched my lunch, the taste grew ever stronger. Each bit of beef, and the ingredients that complemented it, felt particularly vibrant. There was an excitement to simply just sitting there and dreaming. Dreaming for myself; the possibility of one day moving to a United States that cared for its people. Dreaming for my American friends, who would no longer have to live in constant fear or aggravation. Dreaming tasted good.

So how did we come to this point? How is it that the only electable candidate in recent American history was cast away and forced to drop out of the electoral race on 8 April 2020?

Sen. Bernie Sanders offered so much for so many. Abolish capital punishment, end cash bail outs for prisoners, eliminate private prisons, secure elections against undue interference, fund affordable housing, reduce income inequality, raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, support paid sick and maternity leave, cancel student debt, make colleges tuition-free, eliminate the electoral college, allow prisoners the right to vote, ban fracking, reduce carbon emissions, expand on women’s right to choose, and of course – Medicare for all.

These were only some of Sen. Sanders’ propositions, and his record demonstrated his genuine support for them all. For example, Sen. Sanders voted in favour of: The Livable Wage Act of 1993, The Livable Wage Act of 1995, the Global Sustainable Development Resolution of 2000, the Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act of 2007, the American Health Security Act of 2009, the American Health Security Act of 2013, Justice is Not For Sale Act of 2015, the Too Big To Fail, Too Big To Exist Act of 2015, and many other bills that supported his platform. He was real.

Furthermore, these were not pipedreams. In France, citizens have had universal healthcare since 1945, a system that has only continued to improve, most recently with The Health Act of 2019. In Germany, college education is tuition-free. In Italy, paid-leave is guaranteed to every citizen for typically no less than one month per year. These countries are not in shambles. According to the OECD Better Life Index, Italians enjoy above-average income and wealth, work-life balance, and health status; Germans rank above-average “in education and skills, work-life balance, jobs and earnings, income and wealth, environmental equality,” and more; meanwhile, the French rank above-average “in income and wealth, housing, health status, civic engagement, social connections, work-life balance and personal security.” To those who say the coronavirus proved that Italy’s socialist system is a failure when compared to American healthcare, recent statistics seem to show otherwise, with the United States experiencing roughly four times as many COVID-19 patients as of 8 April 2020, and three times as many deaths in a day. Sen. Sanders’ goals were achievable.

So why did he not succeed in 2020? Why does it feel as if tomorrow is yet another day in 2016? First, he was simply too nice. He called Elizabeth Warren a friend of his, and said Joe Biden was “a decent guy.” In response, both candidates attacked Sen. Sanders viciously – Warren claiming that Sanders believed a woman could not be president, and Biden condescendingly referring to Sanders as an unwanted revolutionary.

Second, the American voting system was a complete failure. In California and Texas, voters had to wait in line for hours to vote – something that the average hardworking American would not have time to do. Meanwhile the country’s retirees flocked to support the man they thought would protect America from the menacing communism they believed Sen. Sanders represented.

It is also far from news that the Democratic establishment wanted nothing more than to ruin Sanders’ presidential campaign. In 2016, the now infamous Democratic National Committee (DNC) email leak revealed that top DNC officials had been plotting to sabotage Sen. Sanders’ bid for the presidency. This included claims that Sen. Sanders’ campaign was a security threat, using Sen. Sanders’ atheism to dampen his appeal among Christian voters, and generally deriding his campaign as a “mess.”

Not much has changed since then. After dropping out of the race, nearly all former candidates endorsed Biden, including Cory Booker,  Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Beto O’Rourke, John Delaney, and others. This is comical when considering that so many of these candidates did not agree with Biden’s platform while running against him. Many “supported” expanding healthcare, while Biden proclaimed that private insurance should remain as is; Warren, Yang, and Buttigieg all agreed with Sanders that there should be no restrictions on abortions, while Biden claimed the status quo Roe v. Wade standard was fine; and Sen. Harris famously clashed with Biden during one of the primary debates, highlighting his previous opposition to racially integrated schools. The hypocrisy of these candidates has been astounding.

So, after months of this broken, rigged, and manipulated primary system, America now has two options: Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden. The former has: imprisoned the children of migrants, supported the white nationalists of Charlottesville, refused to release his tax returns, flattered tyrants, referred to Haiti, El Salvador, and African countries as “shithole countries,” and much more.

Meanwhile, Mr. Biden has proven time and again that he is not an ally of liberal democracy. In 1972 he said that Roe v. Wade “went too far” and that he didn’t “think that a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body;” he voted in favour of the Iraq war; and, in March 2020, Biden claimed he would veto Medicare-for-all if it ever passed. Additionally, Mr. Biden is clearly mentally unfit for office. For example, when interviewed by Whoopie Goldberg and Sunny Hostin on The View, Mr. Biden was asked what he thought about the recent politicization of the COVID-19 pandemic. He replied:

“I- I- I think there is truth to both sides. That’s why if you notice on what I’ve been doing, I’ve not been criticizing the president, but I’ve been pointing out where there’s disagreement as to how to proceed. As I pointed out yesterday, in a, in a, in a p-presentation I made online, which, uh, uh, uh I guess three-and-a-half million people watched it or something like that I was told. Um, is that uh, uh he’s not – the coronavirus is not his fault. But the lack of speed and alacrity with which to respond to it has to move much faster. I don’t think we want, as I pointed out, this is not about Democrat and Republican, this is not about what your party is. It’s about getting through this and the American people don’t wanna send a political fight and I want no part of a political fight either.”

Similarly, in September 2019, Mr. Biden was asked about his opposition to racial integration in public schools. He replied:

“Well, they have to deal with the… Look, there is institutional segregation in this country. And from the time I got involved, I started dealing with that. Redlining, banks, making sure that we are in a position where- Look, we talk about education. I propose that what we take is those very poor schools, the Title 1 schools, triple the amount of money we spend from $15 to $45 billion a year. Give every single teacher a raise to the equal of… A raise of getting out of the $60,000 level. No. 2, make sure that we bring in to the help with the stud– the teachers deal with the problems that come from home. The problems that come from home, we need… We have one school psychologist for every 1,500 kids in America today. It’s crazy. The teachers are required- I’m married to a teacher. My deceased wife is a teacher. They have every problem coming to them. Make sure that every single child does, in fact, have three, four, and five-year-olds go to school. School! Not day care, school. We bring social workers into homes of parents to help them deal with how to raise their children. It’s not that they don’t want to help. They don’t know what— They don’t know what quite what to do. Play the radio. Make sure the television—excuse me, make sure you have the record player on at night. The phone—make sure the kids hear words. A kid coming from a very poor school- er, a very poor background will hear 4 million words fewer spoken by the time they get there.”

But should those of us who reside outside of the United States care? Yes. America is still the world’s sole superpower. Though many people consider China a rising superpower, the U.S. “still has three times China’s wealth and five times its military capabilities,” according to Michael Beckley of Tufts University. According to a study by the Pew Research Center, 45% of the people surveyed in 22 nations view the power and influence of the U.S. as a threat. Culturally, the U.S. is known for its impact on the world, with media, film, video games, literature, music, and more, being widely popular across the board. Furthermore, a study by Freedom House, a think tank, demonstrated that the election of Trump had led to an “alarming” decline in democracy globally. The study found that 68 countries saw a decline in political rights and civil liberties between February 2018 and February 2019. Banning political opposition groups, jailing their leaders, abolishing term limits, and attacking journalism were just some of the qualities the report found increased in frequency. 

Taking all of this into consideration, it is clear that the United States has just experienced a severe loss. The nation’s democratic fibre and possible path to health, wealth, and prosperity, will now suffer; all because establishment Democrats chose to betray the party’s one outlier, a well-intentioned and loving American – Senator Bernard Sanders.