Bernie Sanders’ barnstorming tour of the nation stopped over in Bakersfield last Tuesday, then went on to Folsom for an evening encore. Tens of thousands of people showed up for both events. In Folsom, there were reports of lines three miles long.
The huge crowds for Sanders and his new sidekick, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have gathered even in strong Republican states like Idaho. At Folsom, a plane flying a banner that read “Folsom is Trump Country” reminded onlookers that even in left-leaning California, many voters favor Donald Trump’s “burn it down” makeover of the federal government.
But even as Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are drawing headlines during their “Fight Oligarchy” campaign, the United States is becoming ever more divided along fault lines that fracture traditional political foundations. Today’s political differences just as often spring from inhabitants of separate realities as from different viewpoints.
Consider, for example, Republican Congressman Kevin Kiley’s comments about Sanders’ visit. Kiley said,
“If you look at our state, we lead the nation in inequality, homelessness, real poverty, and underperforming schools,” he said. “That’s the result of one-party rule and policies like the ones Bernie Sanders and AOC are spreading.”
Representing the district where the Folsom rally took place, Congressman Kiley was attributing California’s socioeconomic problems to its supposed opposition to oligarchs and support for progressive taxation as recommended by Sanders for decades. Kiley’s remarks probably sat well with many of today’s MAGA Republicans, even though he got the facts wrong.
In fact, California does NOT lead the nation in, “inequality, homelessness, real poverty, and underperforming schools.” In fact, poverty rates per capita are generally much higher in red states like Texas, Florida, Kentucky and Alabama than they are in California.
As for “underperforming schools,” a vague metric that Kiley didn’t qualify, California has nothing to brag about. However, most surveys of school systems in the 50 states rank New Mexico the worst. Consistently ranked near the bottom are red states like Alaska, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Arizona, West Virginia, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Ordinarily, California isn’t even in the bottom ten.
Inequality is another vague metric, but if Kiley was referring to income inequality, California is indeed poorly ranked, almost as bad as Louisiana. And it’s true the California has the greatest total number of homeless people in the nation, but not the greatest per capita. Hawaii, New York, Washington D.C. and Oregon all have higher homeless rates than California.
Kiley apparently thinks policies supported by Bernie and AOC “are spreading,” but that’s certainly not the case in California. While California is indeed a high tax state, many of its taxes — sales tax, gas taxes, and the like — are forms of regressive taxation. Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez favor progressive taxation. Under their policies, billionaires like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Bill Gates and George Soros would pay far higher taxes no matter where they lived. Middle and lower class Americans would pay less for services like health care, childcare, and transportation.
Like Kevin Kiley, Valley Congressman David Valadao is a Republican. His district includes parts of Bakersfield, as well as a large swath of Kings County, where small towns like Avenal, Corcoran, Selma and Shafter are heavily populated by farmworkers. Those small town residents depend on government programs like Medicaid and Medicare, which is why Valadao joined eleven other Republican Congressmembers in opposing his own party’s proposed cuts to Medicaid.
Valadao is the rare Republican office holder who managed to survive Trump’s wrath even after voting to impeach him. Insofar as he’s willing to buck the Republican establishment, Valadao’s independence is actually closer to that of Bernie Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez than to Kevin Kiley’s slavish devotion to the Republican Party line.
And while Kevin Kiley would like to lump Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez in with establishment Democrats like Gavin Newsom and Nancy Pelosi, both Sanders and Cortez have been barred from party influence by the reigning Democratic powers.
Though he ran as a Democrat in the 2016 presidential campaign, Sanders has been an Independent throughout most of his political career. Despite her star power and national popularity, Ocasio-Cortez recently lost a bid to become Chair of the House Oversight Committee. She’s no more a member of the Democratic establishment than Sanders is.
Just as Donald Trump challenged the hollowness of the Republican Party establishment by defeating empty suits like Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are challenging today’s establishment Democrats to return to the party’s roots in Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal platform, a set of policies that helped build America’s middle class prosperity all through the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. It was only when we abandoned New Deal values and principles that the middle class began shrinking and working Americans began sharing less and less of the nation’s growth and prosperity.
Today, America is a nation in deep distress, in large part because Americans have strayed so often and so far from truth and reason. If it is indeed true that California’s socioeconomic problems are due to policies espoused by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, how do we explain worse such problems in red states like Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana?
As for the “one-party rule” Kevin Kiley says is behind California’s problems, how about one-party rule in the nation? Republicans control both houses of congress, the White House, and enjoy a conservative Supreme Court. How’s that going so far? Inflation is rampant, tariffs have imploded the world economy, and China’s power is growing exponentially.
The truth is, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez represent an alternative to the failed policies and stupid culture wars of both our major political parties. For a country in dire distress, they’re offering a new way forward. That’s why they’re drawing huge crowds, and likely the chief reason politicians like Kevin Kiley need to mispresent their views.
Excellent! Well written and in my opinion, well balanced too. In today’s culture-war climate, it’s good to see some facts interject. Keep up the good writing.