Watch: Bernie Sanders' Important Message to Donald Trump Supporters
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/watch-bernie-sanders-important-message-donald-trump-supporters?akid=13814.227380.l4H-SE&rd=1&src=newsletter1048069&t=7
VIDEO AT LINK. PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT HERE:
On Sunday's “Face the Nation,” Bernie Sanders was asked if his message would resonate with supporters of GOP frontrunner Donald Trump. Sanders explained why Donald Trump might appeal to working-class voters facing financial insecurity, before noting that Trump offers exactly the wrong solutions to their economic anxieties, namely in the form of racial hatred and xenophobia.
Sanders said:
"Many of Trump's supporters are working-class people. And they're angry. And they're angry because they're working longer hours for lower wages, they're angry because their jobs have left this country and gone to China or other low-wage countries. They're angry because they can't afford to send their kids to college, they can't retire with dignity. And I think what Trump has done successfully is take that anger, take that anxiety, about terrorism and say to a lot of people in this country, 'Look, the reason for our problems is because of Mexicans,' and he says they're all criminals and rapists, we gotta hate Mexicans. Or he says about the Muslims, 'they're all terrorists. We gotta keep them out of the country.' That's what we have to deal with to make America great.'"
But Trump's proposed policies would hardly alleviate the pressures felt by working- and middle-class Americans, Sanders noted.
"This is a guy who does not want to raise the minimum wage, he has said that wages in America are too high. But he does want to give hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to the top three tenths of one percent."
"I think we can make the case that if we really want to address the issues that people are concerned about: why the middle class is disappearing, massive income and wealth inequality in this country, that we need policies that bring us together, that take on the greed of Wall Street, the greed of corporate America, and create a middle class that works for all of us, rather than an economy that works just for a few," Sanders said.
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