Bernie Sanders: Here's Why Progressives Are Winning

Progressives keep kicking more mainstream Democrats to the curb this year in primary wins that aren't happening because voters suddenly lurched "far left," Sen. Bernie Sanders argues in a Guardian opinion piece. They're winning, he says, because they're talking about the problems most Americans actually feel strongly about. Sanders contends that a "rigged" economic system and "corrupt" campaign finance rules are front and center for working families, and that progressives are the ones offering "real solutions," from stricter limits on billionaire spending in politics to a publicly funded election system based on "one person one vote."

Sanders then runs through a checklist of what he calls mainstream, not radical, positions: Medicare-for-all in a country where 85 million are uninsured or underinsured; a $20 federal minimum wage; stronger union protections; higher taxes on the richest Americans; aggressive regulation of AI; a rapid shift away from fossil fuels that he says could create "millions" of green union jobs; and a foreign policy that cuts Pentagon spending and ends support for "extremist" governments, including Benjamin Netanyahu's in Israel. The bottom line, Sanders writes: progressives are winning because "the ideas they are running on are extremely popular." For the full argument and data points, read the piece at the Guardian.