Elon Musk-- Bigger Villain Than Putin
In a new Rolling Stone interview with Tim Dickinson, Bernie laid out what we’re facing as a nation and as communities and families going into the 2024 election cycle. He explained why he’s backing Biden despite his shortcomings or, as Dickinson put it, “Sanders is emphatic that Biden must level with the American people about the seriousness of the crises we face, and call out the true obstacles to change: an extremist GOP; unchecked billionaire power; and ‘corporate Democrats’ like Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, whom he blames for blocking legislation that would have ‘have transformed life for working-class families in this country.’”
Bernie seems as perplexed as millions of Americans are that polling shows an even situation between Biden and “Trump— who has been impeached twice, indicted four times, is a pathological liar, and who has worked to undermine American democracy and move us toward authoritarianism. Do we want somebody like that to be president of the United States?”
I met Cornel West at a Bernie event in Burlington a few years ago. I plan to vote for him. Bernie is backing Biden— though I suspect in the privacy of the voting booth he’ll follow his heart. Publicly he’s saying “We are facing the real possibility that the United States will lose its democratic foundations if Trump once again becomes the president. And that risk is so great that people are going to have to say, ‘Look, we have to defeat Trump and support Biden.’ But at the same time they can make it clear to Biden that he is going to have to stand up for working-class people in a much stronger way. It’s not good enough for him to rest on his laurels. He’s going to have to take on corporate greed, and we need young people— working-class people— and activists to play a role in that. Here is what the Democrats have got to do— and should do, and must do— in order to win this election, and win it big.”
First, what the Democrats are doing now, which is right and important, is making clear that women should be able to control their own bodies, not state government. The vast majority of Americans agree with them. And they have got to stay with that issue. Big time.
Second, we’ve got to make it very, very clear that we are taking on a [Republican] party which increasingly does not believe in democracy, but believes in authoritarianism and right-wing extremism.
And third is to point out that, in Biden’s first three years, there have been massive accomplishments. Three years ago, this country was in desperate condition because of Covid and the economic downturn. The American Rescue Plan got this country back on its feet. We’ve also dealt with infrastructure in an unprecedented way— more investment in clean energy than ever before. We’re beginning to take on the pharmaceutical industry and lower the cost of prescription drugs, [expand] overtime pay, et cetera. There’s a lot that Democrats and the American people are right to be very proud of.
All of that is important. But it is not enough. The White House has got to say: We have a lot more to do. Sixty percent of working people are living paycheck to paycheck, too many seniors have nothing in the bank for retirement, we have an affordable housing crisis, a child care crisis, an education crisis. And Biden needs to be honest with the American people about how we’re going to address these structural crises facing the working class of this country. [He needs to say]: “Give me 50 real Democrats— not Manchin or Sinema— 50 real Democrats in the Senate. Give me majority control in the House.”
…There is no reason why working-class people should be voting for a political party where most of the congressional representatives want to cut Social Security, want to cut Medicare, want to cut Medicaid, are “right to work” supporters, and don’t even believe in the reality of climate change.
…I saw a poll a number of months ago that was just Republicans. Do you know what their major issue was? It was not overthrowing the United States government. It was the high cost of prescription drugs. If Biden says, ‘We’ve made progress— the Inflation Reduction Act begins Medicare drug-price negotiations— but we got to go further,’ he’ll win enormous amount of support— from conservative Democrats, from progressives, from Republicans.
Or you say to seniors in this country— many of whom are Republicans— we know you can’t afford dental care, you can’t afford your hearing aid, you can’t afford your eyeglasses. We’re going to expand Medicare to cover dental, vision, hearing. That’s enormously popular, I’ve seen polls where 80 percent of the American people support it.
You don’t have to be radical. Do what the American people want.
An X poll earlier today:
Once Bernie started talking about corporate greed driving up inflation, Dickinson asked him about Elon Musk: “The poster billionaire for unaccountable power right now is Elon Musk. But he’s also benefited enormously from government contracts and subsidies. Are there federal carrots or sticks that could help bring someone like that back into an accountable mode?”
Bernie: “Excellent question. And it is Musk— but it’s not just Musk. You got [Jeff] Bezos. You got others. I’ll give you one example, and that is the degree to which NASA is being privatized. You had an effort providing billions of dollars to Bezos. Musk has benefited from contracts. And you’re looking at people like Musk and Bezos playing a very significant role in outer space development. It’s no secret Musk wants to develop Mars. And by the way, the kind of riches that he could benefit from mining— literally mining— meteors is a huge amount of money. Do you know that? No one is talking about it. Right now, Musk and Bezos literally have the legal right to take rare minerals off a meteor for their own personal gain— which to me is literally beyond comprehension.”
