Following the loss of Vice President Kamala Harris’ race to the White House, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent, issued a statement calling the Democratic Party’s campaign “disastrous.”
Sanders, who caucuses with Democrats, said it “should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.”
“First, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and Black workers as well,” Sanders wrote in the statement. “While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they’re right.”
The longtime progressive leader, who ran for president in both 2016 and 2020, discussed how economic instability continues to impact Americans, highlighting issues like income and wealth inequality as well as the absence of guaranteed paid family and medical leave. He also voiced criticism of ongoing military aid spending for Israel.
“Today, despite strong opposition from a majority of Americans, we continue to spend billions funding the extremist Netanyahu government’s all out war against the Palestinian people which has led to the horrific humanitarian disaster of mass malnutrition and the starvation of thousands of children,” Sanders said.
Sanders, who won reelection on Tuesday for a fourth six-year term in the U.S. Senate, expressed skepticism about whether the party would truly learn from its past mistakes.
“Will the big money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign? Will they understand the pain and political alienation that tens of millions of Americans are experiencing? Do they have any ideas as to how we can take on the increasingly powerful Oligarchy which has so much economic and political power? Probably not,” Sanders said.
He continued that “very serious political discussions” are necessary and “those of us concerned about grassroots democracy and economic justice.”
Harris conceded the election in a Wednesday speech at her alma mater, Howard University, in Washington, D.C.
“While I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign,” she said. “The fight for freedom, for opportunity, for fairness and the dignity of all people — a fight for the ideals at the heart of our nation — the ideals that reflect America at our best.”
