10 ‘Radical’ Ideas From Bernie Sanders: Guess Which Ones Most Americans Agree On?
Still think Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is a fringe candidate and a wild-eyed socialist? The GOP candidates, Hillary Clinton, and the billionaires who’ve stolen our country would love for us to think so.
But Moyers and Company reminds us that those who underestimate Sanders do so at their peril. Especially since most Americans agree on what he has to say.
But Sanders’s positions are quite mainstream from the point of view of the stances of the American public in general. Of course, the 1 percent, for whom and by whom most mainstream media report, are appalled and would like to depict him as an outlier.
Sanders has long stood with liberals on education, war, the environment, women’s health, and equal rights for women, people of color and LGBT people. But he’s also the only candidate to take the lead on issues that impact ordinary Americans every single day, and which most of our leaders refuse to seriously discuss or address.
As President Barack Obama joked at the Annual White House Correspondents Dinner back in April, after Sanders announced he was joining the 2016 race:
“Apparently they really want to see a pot smoking socialist in the White House. We could get a third Obama term after all.”
And the wonderful thing about Sanders is…He doesn’t care whether we think he can win. He’s surprised people many times before, and could very well do it again.
Polls show America’s with Sanders on 10 major issues.
You may find this shocking, but polls from Gallup, Pew, Rasmussen and others show that Sanders is squarely in the main stream when it comes to most of the issues we care about and hear about in the news.
Curbing Big Money in Politics: Sanders isn’t the only one fed up with billionaires buying Congress. Half of us want public financing for national political campaigns, along with spending limits on campaigns and contributions. Even 48 percent of independents and 41 percent of Republicans support this. During the 2012 election, 66 percent said they oppose Citizens United, and 55 percent do not agree that corporations are people.
2.Breaking up the big banks: Sanders thinks “too big to fail means too big to exist,” and most of us agree with him. 55 percent believe that next time, the U.S. government should let failing big banks go out of business. Only 26 percent of us have “a great deal” of confidence in our banks, with 43 percent more saying they’ve got just “some” confidence.
3.Reducing the wealth gap: We’re also with Sanders on income inequality. Americans love it when people get rich, and hope it happens to us someday. But we also love fairness and for all of us to start out on a fairly level field. 63 percent of us want money and wealth distributed more evenly and more broadly. That includes a surprising 42 percent of those who describe themselves as conservatives. We also agree that American workers are long overdue for a pay hike, especially at the bottom of the wage ladder. 76 percent would raise the minimum wage to at least $9.00 per hour, and 69 percent would index the minimum wage to rise with the rate of inflation. Yet Congress continues to do nothing.
4.Making healthcare affordable: America’s definitely not ready for the kind of socialized healthcare Sanders proposes. Then again, an awful lot of us hated Obamacare until our health coverage kicked in. It sounds crazy, but people actually like being able to see the doctor or deal with a medical emergency without going bankrupt. In 2013, only 29 percent were happy with how the government handles healthcare. Now, satisfaction has shot up to 43 percent. These numbers would be much higher if we didn’t have 21 GOP governors denying healthcare to their own constituents.
(the rest of the top ten)
5.Making college affordable:
6.Keeping Social Security and Medicare:
7.Rebuilding our infrastructure:
8.Fighting climate change:
9. Legalizing marijuana:
10.The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP):
Oh, but isn’t Sanders one of those scary socialists? As he told George Stephanopoulos one Sunday morning, “that’s right. And what’s wrong with that?”
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/06/02/bernie-sanders-10-issues-mainstream/
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