By Guy Page
In a Senate speech yesterday, Sen. Bernie Sanders diagnosed our nation’s failing political and social health:
- Only 16% of Americans think Congress is doing a good job.
- A strong majority of Americans believe the government is “corrupt and rigged against me.”
- A growing number of Americans believe that they may have to take up arms against their own government.
Vermont’s socialist soon-to-be-senior citizen then, predictably for him, prescribed another heavy dose of government spending. You can read the entire speech here. Below is an excerpt:
M. President: I want to say a few words about the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” which I believe may be coming to the floor this week.
But, before I do, I want to put this reconciliation bill into the context of where we are as a nation politically. And that is not a good place.
According to the most recent Gallup poll the approval rating for Congress is at 16% with massive numbers of people disapproving of the work we are doing here.
Further, according to a recent University of Chicago poll, a strong majority of Americans believe that the government is “corrupt and rigged against me.”
Further, according to a [USA Today] poll a very strong majority no longer believes that the Democratic or Republican parties are responding to their needs and we need to move to a multi-party system. And, most frighteningly, there is a growing number of Americans who believe that they may have to take up arms against their own government in order to accomplish what they think needs to be done.
All of this speaks to a very dangerous moment for American democracy and resembles the conditions that existed in Europe in the 1920s and early 1930s which led to fascism and totalitarianism.
And I should mention that, as we speak, while working families are falling further and further behind economically the billionaire class through their super-PACs are doing everything they can to elect members of Congress who will support the wealthy and the powerful against the needs of average Americans.
The people of this country believe, in my view correctly, that we have a corrupt political system dominated by the rich and the powerful and we have a rigged economy in which large corporations are seeing huge profits while the middle class and working families continue to decline.
Sound diagnosis? You be the judge. Will even more spending and taxation cure what ails us? Bribing the rampaging 800-pound gorilla with bananas might not be the best solution, but give Bernie credit at least for pointing out the beast many other politicians are politely ignoring.