Sanders’ Record vs. Biden’s: There is No Comparison
Bernie Sanders’ cross-generational appeal stems from one major thing: authenticity. Not only in style- with classic comments such as “I wrote the damn bill” and “If we can bail out Wall Street, we can bail out Main Street,” but more importantly, in substance.
Sanders has galvanized a movement of not only young people, who are historically disinterested in politics, but of working people from all walks of life and of retired people- groups that typically do not align politically.
Sanders ‘Medicare for All’ platform has broad appeal in a country where millions of Americans are uninsured or under-insured. By some estimates ‘Medicare for All’ would save an average of 67,000 lives per year.
Sanders inspires in ways that other candidates don’t because not only is he saying these things, he has been doing something about them for the past 40 years that he’s been in public office, and he has managed to make real inroads.
Whether with striking Verizon workers, GM workers, UC workers or Disneyland workers; Sanders walks his talk and gets results. His track record in the Senate also reflects that. As a senator he fought tirelessly to expand benefits to service members through the Veterans Affairs Bureau- when cuts were proposed he fought back and won- he also happens to be the candidate with the most contributions from members of the military.
From disastrous foreign policy like the Iraq War to disastrous trade policy like NAFTA, Sanders has consistently been on the right side of history. In 2003, five years before the financial collapse when Alan Greenspan, then Chairman of the Federal Reserve, effectively said that everything in the economy was rosy, Sanders, then a Congressman, said,
“I urge you and I mean this seriously, because you’re an honest person, I think you just don’t know what’s going on in the real world, and I would urge you, come with me to Vermont, meet real people! The country clubs and the cocktail parties are not real America. The millionaires and billionaires are the exception to the rule, you talk about an improving economy while we have lost three million private sector jobs in the last two years.”
Even on issues that were once considered controversial like gay rights and civil rights Sanders has stayed on the same side, unlike Biden who voted for DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act, which excluded gay people from the legal and social benefits bestowed through marriage, while Sanders opposed it.
While Biden was against busing which would help facilitate the federal policy of racially integrating schools, a decade earlier Bernie was busy organizing a sit-in with his campus chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) when it was discovered by a group of apartment-hunting white and black students that off-campus buildings owned by the university were refusing to rent to black students, in violation of the school’s policies.
On issue after issue Sanders record checks out, a rarity amongst politicians. In an age of skepticism and hyper-partisanship fueled by cable news networks, peddling opinion as news, Sanders is a true outlier. A politician who means what he says and does what he means who has also managed to reach across the aisle and earn the respect, cooperation and votes of members of the Republican Party, is a rarity indeed.
Sanders has also has recently come forward as the first presidential candidate to propose a national policy of legalizing marijuana along with overturning marijuana convictions, which could potentially save the country billions in money spent on incarceration that as Sanders says, would be better spent on education.
Sanders, now in his second presidential bid, has received more single donations than any other candidate in history, as of Jan. 2, 2020, Time magazine reported that Sanders had received 5 million individual donations and that according to his campaign, “his average donation for the quarter was $18.53, and added that 99.9 percent of its donors have not maxed out and can contribute again.”
Bernie has the popular support of the people, making him truly the people’s choice. The media likes to portray him as a socialist without making a clear distinction between the difference between socialism and democratic socialism- think Cuba versus Denmark, one country has capitalism with a strong social safety net the other has a system built with little commerce, a strong black market and not a lot of economic mobility; both countries have greater life expectancies than the United States.
The main difference between Sanders and other politicians is that, yes, he “gives a damn about people.” He comes from humble beginnings, the son of Polish immigrants, grew up in a rent-controlled 3 1/2 room apartment in Brooklyn and is uniquely qualified to represent the people because he’s walked in their shoes.
Anyone who wants meaningful structural change in America in a way that will benefit working people, students, immigrants, people of color and anyone not born into privilege will benefit from voting for Sanders. Those whose main concern is beating Trump should also vote for Sanders because he has proven to be the candidate with the most stamina, the most popular ideas and the most popular support. In poll after poll he beats Trump, none of the same can be said of Joe Biden.
