As Support for Progressive Agenda Grows, Sanders Says 'Big Money Interests' ... 'Should Be Scared' [View all]

Tuesday, July 24, 2018
byCommon Dreams

Excerpt:

"There is a reason why the corporate Democrats are getting nervous. And that's because we are making real progress in transforming the party and the nation."

On the very same day that democratic socialists Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) rallied thousands behind two progressive congressional candidates in Kansas last week, around 250 corporate Democrats and Third Way strategists gathered behind closed doors in Ohio to discuss ways to counteract the progressive momentum embodied by Ocasio-Cortez, Michigan's Abdul El-Sayed, and others throughout the nation.

These two "very different meetings," Sanders argued in an email to supporters Monday evening, represent divergent trends in the Democratic Party—one backed by corporate cash and the other backed by the majority of the American public.

"What are they concerned about? That our ideas, such as Medicare for all, tuition-free public colleges and universities, a $15 per hour minimum wage, and progressive taxation are now mainstream positions," Sanders wrote of the Democratic donors, financiers, and politicians who gathered in Ohio on Friday. "The big money interests should be scared."

"The corporate Democrats are plotting how to defeat progressives the only way they know how—with big money," Sanders added. "But you've shown that, together, we can overcome their brand of pay-to-play politics."

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/07/24/support-progressive-agenda-grows-sanders-says-big-money-interests-and-corporate