This Election is a truly unique one, the United States is at a cross road where we must decide in which direction we wish to travel. Each candidate is unique and will bring about change in a different way, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would be the first woman President in American history. Senator Bernie Sanders would be the first Jewish man elected into the Presidential office. However, in the back rooms of politics there is a war going on.
There are two sides to this secret back room war, in the Democratic Primary. There is the Democratic Establishment, which is made up of the most powerful politicians in Washington and in Congress and the DNC (Democratic National Convention). The Democratic Establishment supports Hillary Clinton in this election, as they have in 2008 until then Senator Barak Obama began to beat her and they in turn started supporting him as he was willing to “play ball.” The opposition to the Democratic Establishment is Senator Bernie Sanders, who is actively running against the Democratic Establishment. Bernie Sanders refuses to “play ball” with the way politics is usually played, he is running against money in politics, and against the status quo of the Democratic Party.
It’s important to know that Senator Bernie Sanders, prior to his candidacy, was an Independent and only joined the Democratic Party so that he can run for President. That being said Bernie Sanders is not and never was a part of the Democratic Establishment. Senator Sanders’ number one talking point in this election is the issue of money in politics and the corruption that began after the Supreme Court case of Citizens United Vs the Federal Election Committee, in which I talk about more in depth here. In short, the Supreme Court decided that it was constitutionally legal to allow corporations to give an unlimited amount of money to politicians. The Democratic Establishment was greatly affected by this as money from donors began to influence their political decision making and the entire party was pushed to the right, and became more conservative.
Senator Bernie Sanders whole-heartedly believes this is the main issue in the United States because it sends a chain reaction that influences the decision making in every other issue. His stance on this issue and his refusal to take large donations from corporations has made him an enemy of the Democratic Establishment. He is completely uninfluenced by corporations, or the standard stances of the Democratic Establishment. He is more liberal than the supposed Party of liberals, because he refuses throughout his career to allow corporate money to push his stances to the right of the political spectrum.
It is important to know that the same big money that influences positions also influence Establishment Media most notably Fox News but includes CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, The Huffington Post and many more News organizations. Establishment News create a false illusion of “balanced” coverage like Fox News, that is clearly a conservative News outlet and some like The Huffington Post and MSNBC claim to be liberal media. In reality all these News agencies are being influenced by the same people and corporations as the politicians they cover.
The very first attack the Establishment fired at Bernie Sanders was that he was “too far left” in other words they attempted to paint him as an extremist. The Establishment media attacked him because he calls himself a Democratic Socialist, which is a political view that boils down to wanting some aspects of the economy to be run privately and some aspects to be run by the government, like public schools and healthcare. Bernie Sanders described it in his own words as “a government that works for all not just a few.” Another famous of a democratic socialist is President Roosevelt who brought the country out of the Great Depression by creating many social programs like Social Security, Welfare programs and ended the ill practices of banks that brought on the Great Depression.
The Senator's stances on almost every issue is always being criticized for being too extreme. His stance on money in politics is ignored by the media and Hillary Clinton dismisses it as a nonissue, saying that the millions of dollars she receives from corperations does not effect her policies. His stance on raising taxes on the rich is attacked for being anti-business and "punishing the rich." When he says he wants to make public college free, the media calls it absurd and expensive. His stance on protecting the environment and focusing on clean energy instead of on coal and fossial fuels have been criticized for being too drastic.
I am not saying its wrong to criticize a politician for his views, however the questions and the framing of the questions they ask Senator Sanders during the debates and on cable news and online news articles compared to the questions they ask and the coverage they give to Hillary Clinton shows a huge bias. Do not take my word for it, watch it you can see it live on air and witness it yourself. In this article I only outlined one of the many criticism the Establishment has used against him during the primaries. There are too many to outline in one article, but there will be articles continuing this topic.
