On May 26, 2015, Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT) formally announced his candidacy for the presidency. It wasn’t a surprise: Bernie had been getting out there a lot lately with some of his whacked-out ideas, such as—prepare to faint—free college education for all, a progressive tax system and breaking up dangerously large Wall Street banks (who are even larger today than they were in 2008 when they torpedoed the world economy.) But here are a couple of things that are surprising: in the first 24 hours after the preliminary announcement on May 7, Bernie outraised all the top Republican candidates by pulling in donations totaling US$1.50M. Rubio came closest at $1.25M.
But even more unexpected has been the media’s reaction, which, despite Bernie’s robust fundraising, is perplexingly dismissive. The media tends to only focus on Bernie ‘s candidacy as it relates to Hillary’s, referring to him as just a ‘protest candidate.’ And when they do take him seriously enough to talk about his ideas, they act like it’s science fiction. Take a recent interview with Wolf Blitzer where Bernie discussed his goal for the U.S. to provide free college education at public universities. Now this isn’t just some kooky, unattainable utopian ideal—Germany and the Scandinavian countries are already doing it. To Wolf, however, this idea seemed as unlikely as pigs flying. ‘Where’s the money going to come from? Wolf asked. Bernie: ‘a tax on Wall Street speculation.’ Wolf: ‘What does that mean? Do you think Republicans are going to go along with that? If they don’t go along with it, it’s not going to become law, right?’ If Wolf were wearing pearls, he would’ve been clutching them nervously.
Bernie was referring to a law proposed in 2012 that called for a micro-tax of .03% (or $3 for trades of US$10,000 or more), which would generate approximately US$350B over the next decade—more than enough to cover the free college program. The same kind of tax already exists in more than 30 countries including the UK, Japan, Switzerland and Germany.
Bernie’s platform also includes a Medicare-for-all-single payer system. Yes, Obamacare is an improvement, but in this monopolized market we only have horrifyingly limited options like Anthem Blue Cross or Aetna, which is like trying to pick your favorite Menendez brother.
The media is already starting to refer to Bernie mockingly in headlines as ‘Socialist Candidate Bernie Sanders.’
But the last laugh might just be on the mainstream media. They won’t take Bernie seriously until the debates, where Bernie’s ideas will likely resonate with an American public beaten down by three plus decades of trickle-down economics. Before the Reagan era, we led the world in social mobility. Thanks to its progressive tax system, Denmark now leads. Among the world’s largest free-market democracies, ‘The Land of Opportunity’ scores next to last in social mobility.
The media may dismiss Bernie, but you shouldn’t—he’s the only candidate out there with a real plan to take the American dream back from Denmark.
Alison Gallant is a freelance writer living in Los Angeles
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