Bernie’s Impenetrable Consistency
“We have an approach to campaign financing which, to a very large degree, allows wealthy people and major corporations to buy and sell politicians. The rich get richer. The poor get poorer. And ordinary Americans are shut out of the political system.”
That was a quote from Bernie, representing Vermont’s at-large for the US House of Representatives in 1992. Bernie Sanders is a veteran politician, having kickstarted his politics career being the Mayor of a small town of Burlington, Vermont in 1981. Dating back as far as 1971, his union platform called for the abolishment of laws regulating abortions, birth control, and advocating gay rights, which was a largely progressive platform to run under the circumstances in the US back then. Sanders has always been the voice of the people, amplifying the struggles of the working class, attributing to other politicians in his class from taking corporate money, thus taking biased stance.
Policies namely universal healthcare, free public colleges, and raising taxes for the wealthy have all were the foundation of what he stood for representing the state of Vermont in the House of Representatives in 1990, and yet he still stood by the same fundamental three decades later. He is now currently in the hot seat of the democratic primary, with only two major candidates running for president for the Democratic National Convention, him, and Ex-Vice President Joe Biden. Under the spotlight makes it easier for the public to nitpick or dig up dirt on his past, but over the years, even since he started the campaign for 2016 Presidential Campaign, there’s not much to look for other than the same old message.
Americans joke, Bernie would start the speech, and they would finish it. He has been saying the same things over and over on his every speech, with the same, distinctive fury. His worldview is locked in. You can see every campaign rally, every town hall, or presidential debate, in front of white, black people, or in every of his speeches — the substance is always consistent.
Seeing this platform that he stood on decades ago, he was well beyond of his time on every issue. Today, discourse regarding his plans for his future of “Political Revolution” for America is being talked about everyday thanks to the internet. The crippling system of healthcare today in the US requires new regulations that will not put the working-class people under the burden of bankruptcy. The skyrocketing of college tuition, and the billions of dollars accumulated of all the student debts which he planned on cancelling all of it is a serious problem facing the country’s youth. The increasing gap between the poor and the wealthy, is only making it harder for the lower to middle-class citizens to live on the high standards of living in the US.
His precedence for consistency over other politicians in his field is to be taken for an example for our every local politician in the country. In contrast to our very local politicians running the Capital, which has been called out over the times as being very much inconsistent for the policies he would swear to run, only to find out some times later would throw under the bus anyone who would take the blame and point fingers. Every politician should take accountability for what they have said in the past, more specifically in regards to the regulating of laws.
For better or worse, Bernie hasn’t deviated from his ideal America, something the politicians should take part in for their own sector. To have great ideals that would better the community it affects, benefiting the people globally, and to have a spine.
Written on 11 March, 2020
