Bernie Sander’s: It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism

The current state of American politics is just a mess. There’s a clear divide between the party lines, and even within each party, there are divisions. Instead of getting sucked into the endless political culture wars amplified by the media, Bernie follows the money. He shows us it’s the uber wealthy and mega corporations that are pulling the levers of government and policy. But first, let’s squash the argument of “but Bernies, rich. What a hypocrite.” Bernie’s got money, yes. His net worth is around 3 million dollars. Sure, this sounds like he’s rich, and he’s being a hypocrite criticizing the wealthy. But he made 2.5 million between 2011, when he was 70, to 2023, from 6 books he either wrote or republished. This amount of money is nothing when talking about the 1%. Even Sean Hannity, with a net worth of 250 million, laughs at Bernie’s “wealth”. 

An Introduction to Bernie’s Book

Getting back to the book. If you’ve followed Bernie’s 2020 presidential run, you may want to skip this book. A lot of the book seemed like a rehash of his campaign, with a mention of Jan 6 and a breakdown of how media operates at the end. I’ll admit there were a couple of points in this book where I was going to put it down and not come back. Whether he’s talking about healthcare, education, or taxes he goes into great detail, with a lot of quoting people and statistics, showing how a small group of people and corporations have created systems in which they never lose. If anything, it felt like a book describing how the masses have generally been defeated by what he calls “an emerging oligarchy”. Of course, he gives plenty of ideas and examples of other countries’ systems that work far better and should be implemented, but most of it isn’t realistic enough to be adopted at all. I did end up finishing the book, so let’s take a look at what Bernie is waving his finger at.

Bernie starts the book by going over his 2020 presidential run. He emphasizes how much he engaged with people, traveling around to different states, and small towns getting to know people, listening to their stories, wants and dreams. Like a good politician. For a more or less outside contender, Bernie did pretty well and had quite the movement and support behind him. He proudly labels himself as a democratic socialist. To me, you might as well shoot yourself in the foot calling yourself a socialist, as there is a large chunk of people that will hear socialist and just turn off, and the media will use it as an easy target. Unfortunately, even with all the momentum and support for Bernie’s crusade to tackle income inequality and get everyday Americans, 60% of which live paycheck to paycheck, a fighting chance fell short. When it was becoming clear that Joe Biden was going to be the democrat’s choice for president, Bernie came across as a little bitter but was willing to get behind Joe to save us from one of the most destructive presidents America has ever had. Donald Trump.

The Trump Election

This is where Bernie focuses on the Trump presidency and the January 6th insurrection. Before becoming president, Trump was nothing more than a conman running scam businesses, and charities and partying with Jeffry Epstein. Trump’s one and only skill is getting people to believe absurd things. He literally got people to believe he was going to get Mexico to pay for a border wall. Create a healthcare system that covers more people for less money. Eliminate the national debt and have a surplus. And more. Unsurprisingly he did none of that stuff and as Bernie points out the only piece of legislation his white house passed was a tax cut for the highest-income households. All while Trump raged and tweeted in his diaper stoking racism and xenophobia and golfing on the taxpayer’s dime. January 6th wasn’t a peaceful protest as Trump may see it. Our saving grace is that Trump suffers from crippling narcissism and has the mental acuity of a 10-year-old. I thought Bernie spent too much time on Trump, but he explains how we ended up with Trump because of Obama’s failures and corporate bailouts. During Obama’s presidency, a lot of factories and labor went overseas. This was great for large corporations as they could produce their products with cheap labor at a fraction of the cost of what it would be to pay Americans. In saving the stock market, which the wealthiest 10% own 93% of, he kind of left the middle class in the dust. Insert Trump appealing to the working class and promoting nationalism. 

The Biden Election

Luckily Joe Biden won the 2020 election. Here Bernie starts out optimistic with democrats in control and ready to pass Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Plan. The Build Back Better Plan along with the Infrastructure spending came to about 4 Trillion in spending that was aimed at creating millions of jobs, increasing labor unions and protections, addressing climate change, and providing social services. After printing 5.2 trillion to battle COVID-19, requesting another 4 trillion didn’t go well. Enter Krysten Sinema and Joe Manchin. The Democrats had a narrow majority and needed every vote in order to pass Build Back Better. It’s well known that Joe Manchin is owned by large fossil fuel companies and Krysten Sinema is bought by hedge funds and Wall Street. Bernie takes the time to highlight how it only took the wealthy to own 2 politicians to kill a bill and reduce it to the Inflation Reduction Act. Still successful on its own, but a fraction of what it was supposed to be. At least Manchin can still give press conferences from his yacht, and Krysten can still afford her one of a kind dresses. 

Bernie’s Attack on the Rich

This is the point of the book where Bernie starts waving his finger at how billionaires shouldn’t exist. He uses a lot of reports and statistics in this section, which can get pretty dry. In summary though the top 1% own about one-third of the nation’s wealth and the top 10% own about 72%. Leaving the other 90% of the population with the leftovers. He makes the point several times that 3 people have the majority of the wealth and they don’t seem to want to better society with it, even though that’s what they always claim. 2 of them are building spaceships to escape Earth’s problems, while the other is living in his made up virtual reality Metaverse. Bernie really singles out Jeff Bezos though, and I found it kind of entertaining. If you get the chance, watch Jeff on the Lex Fridman podcast. There’s a reason why he doesn’t do a lot of them. After listening to him for a while you realize how disconnected his life is from everyday society. While he’s talking about having a population of well over 10 billion, with multiple Einsteins and Mozarts, on spaceships cursing around the solar system, Bernie reminds us Jeff is just dreaming and that in reality, he’s squeezing the life out of everyone else for himself. 

Instead of allowing unions to form, paying adequate wages, provide quality health care or a work environment that is safe and not soul-sucking. He’d rather invest in union-busting companies, avoid paying healthcare, and have his employees struggle to keep up with an automated system that’s not designed for human workers. The kicker though is that these guys pay little to no federal taxes. With their teams of accountants utilizing every tax loophole, they can and the constant drive of Republicans to pass tax legislation in their favor means that the wealthy have grown their wealth by vast amounts, while middle america continues to sink into debt. 

Bernie’s View on Healthcare 

In the book Bernie spends a lot of time on healthcare and large pharmaceutical companies. Again he gives a lot of data and stats, describing the confusing and ineffective system we have. How most medical groups, and their staffs are largely billing departments providing inadequate service in care in more rural areas because it’s not profitable. He goes on for a while about it, and it gets pretty numbing. His point though is that health care is a human right, not a privilege. Of course one of the richest countries in the world should have some sort of universal health care, but not here. His idea is to expand Medicare for all, as a single-payer, national healthcare service, with no premiums or surprise bills. He references Canada’s and Germany’s healthcare systems and how they could be applied here. 

As well, he rips into big pharma and how much and consistently they price gouge people for profits. He describes the unhealthy relationship the government has with big pharma and the lobbyist working in Washington. He does give Trump credit for Operation Warp Speed (such a dumb name) showing that the government can push the pharmaceutical companies to work for the people and provide vaccines for people. But instead of price gouging people for the vaccines, the government gave these companies large sums of money and their stock prices exploded. Still a win for the pharmaceutical companies paid by the taxpayer. 

The Cost of Education

I did find it interesting how much Bernie goes on about education and not just the high cost of college tuition, but general public education. He sees a general dumbing down in our education and that we are raising our children to be cogs in a machine instead of critical thinkers and problem solvers. Personally, I agree with Bernie that one of the country’s biggest investments should be in education. America ranks as one of the highest in child poverty in developed countries. Just to provide year-round free universal meals and not food with little nutritional value, but locally sourced food would have a big impact. He would like to have free child care and pre-k, which again would go a long way when both parents have to work just to keep up with bills. 

Of course, he thinks that college tuition and trade schools should be free or at least mostly covered by the government. It doesn’t make sense to leave college with $60k or more in debt and have a job with a starting salary of $40K, making payments that are mostly covering the interest of the debt. Again, like everything else, this would require a complete overhaul of the system and large funding. Bernie makes a point to rip Betsy Devos who is a multi-billionaire, who with her family has donated millions to republican caucuses and had no experience or qualifications to be the secretary of education, but felt that schools should be privatized and no college debt should be canceled. Other countries like Germany and Singapore have largely subsidized college and it has worked very well for them. The old saying goes, knowledge is power. It’s a lot easier to control dumber people, and this is reflected in the media. 

Bernie’s Attack on Corporate Media

Towards the end of the book, Bernie goes off on Corporate media and how it is undermining democracy, as it’s just another for-profit industry that dumbs down and diminishes debate in America. To understand what he’s talking about you really just need to watch Fox News or Newsmax for an evening. Their goal is to keep their viewers enraged at whatever topic, play a blame game, and pose a lot of vague questions. Do they offer any solutions or try to have in-depth debates with opposing views? No, of course not. 

Media Blackouts

More interesting though was Bernie explaining the media blackouts in rural parts of the country. Most networks are stationed in large cities and cater to them. And since local media doesn’t have the funding or can’t show that it can be profitable there’s no representation. About 8 large media conglomerates control 90% of the news. The wealthy then control the narrative and have their talking heads push the stories. Bernie states you don’t often hear them talk about income inequality and how the uber-wealthy are crushing the middle class. Instead, we get how Republicans are taking away our freedoms or how Democrats are evil, woke pedophiles. Whether it’s left or right media, they’re echo chambers, and they don’t open themselves up to having real debates, partially due to the people that go on these shows being nothing more than mouthpieces just spewing nonsense and the networks are more interested in getting gotcha moments instead of working on solutions. 

The End

The end of the book is Bernie’s call to arms. The middle class and everyday Americans need to demand a paradigm shift away from the uber-wealthy and capitalistic drive in every sector of life. That the government should work for the masses and not just the wealthy. He goes into how the republican party has no plans to work for the American people and that their goal is to continually reduce and remove social services, healthcare, and social security, provide no affordable housing, but keep people in debt and working till death. 

To believe that republican lawmakers spend July 4th, 2018 in Russia to tell Putin not to meddle in our elections is laughable. If anything they are trying to mimic what Putin has done in consolidating power and wealth and succeeding in it. Bernie is very honest in admitting that Democrats have deserted the middle class to appease the wealthy. Democrats still can’t seem to get solid messaging and rally support, while Republicans and Trump have taken the easy road in blaming immigrants and socialist policies for every issue. So far the Democrat’s message is ya we’re bad, but Republicans are worse. Which isn’t acceptable. 

A Grim Future Awaits

Joe Biden won the 2020 election at the age of 78, and his age and cognition were a large issue, as well, people largely voted for him because Trump is clinically insane. But instead of trying to promote someone younger who can reach the younger middle America for 2024, Democrats are sticking with an unpopular 81-year-old man. Like Bernie says we need a radical paradigm shift away from providing only for the wealthy. Unfortunately, there doesn’t really seem to be a path for this shift as Bernie has been in politics for a long time and it hasn’t gotten much better.