Well. Symone Sanders, who has worked on both Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden's campaigns, has an interesting piece of information that she has learned from this past election. And I think she's right about this. So take it away. [00:00:17] This has literally been going on since Fred Hampton. But I mean, Reverend Jesse Jackson, Doctor King, right? Heck, Bernie Sanders talked about organizing across class as well. He did. And that is something that Symone Sanders is now giving Senator Bernie Sanders [00:00:36] a lot of credit for, even though she previously spoke against it. But it's okay once you come to the right conclusion, you deserve credit. Now, she made that passionate point and defended Bernie Sanders over the weekend, focusing on how, look, [00:00:52] there needs to be more organizing and more messaging on class based politics as opposed to identity based politics. And so Symone Sanders used to work for Bernie Sanders presidential campaign in 2016, and we are glad to see her fighting for him now, [00:01:09] because again, a few years back, she was actually taking shots at him for sharing that same message. And we're going to get to that in just a minute. - But first, Jake, initial thoughts? - Yeah. Look, I feel bad sometimes criticizing folks. I know how that feels. [00:01:26] But there's a lot of Johnny come latelys with epiphanies without apologies. Right. So a lot of identity politics was played in the Democratic Party. We'll come back and talk more about that after Ayanna gives you the rest of the story. So the clip we just showed you is just a small piece of what Symone [00:01:44] Sanders had to say about class. So for context, she was actually responding to the ongoing fight within MAGA over H-1b immigration visas. And so with that in mind, here's more context of what she was saying. [00:01:59] The reality is, is when you align just along, if we can just specifically talk about white people for a second, okay. If we just talk about aligning just across race, we are seeing the divisions happening right now. The billionaire, the white billionaires. [00:02:15] Elon Musk is not saying, yes, I'm fighting for the little guy. Yes, I'm out here, you know, looking out for the forgotten white man. He is saying these folks are mediocre and let me get somebody else to do it. Which is why folks white, black, Latino, Native American, Asian American and [00:02:30] Pacific Islander and otherwise we have to look at organizing across class. Okay. Because the reality is what they said, as Michael said, what they said about black people all those years ago, and they still trying to say it about us to be very clear now. They said, they're saying it out loud about people who are not black about you. [00:02:49] I mean, this is the reason why politicians advocating for universal economic policies tend to perform better in political polling, they tend to get reelected. It's messaging that appeals to a broader group of voters. [00:03:07] I just I don't think that that's a smart point at all. I think that that's like a very common sense point. But we've been gaslit with the identity politics for so long, and anyone who would say what we're saying right now would be browbeaten as like a race. [00:03:23] I'm sorry, a class essentialist, which is a ridiculous point to make. These economic policies that especially were advocated for by Bernie Sanders, would have honestly disproportionately helped black women who are overrepresented in minimum wage jobs, for instance. [00:03:39] And so I just think the class based policies and messaging and political campaigns tend to do better. And yeah, when you start divvying people up based on identity, based on race, based on gender, based on all of that stuff, well, it honestly is more conducive to like political infighting [00:03:57] and all sorts of nonsense that ends up being counterproductive for the party. And I think the Democratic Party has experienced quite a bit of that. Yeah. So there's a couple of factors here. First of all, identity politics in the modern political era was started by the Republican Party when they did the Southern Strategy. [00:04:13] And so the southern strategy was, hey, Lyndon Johnson got a lot of Dixiecrats in the South that were Democrats to vote for the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. So that presented an opportunity for Republicans to go pick up voters in the South that wanted to maintain segregation and wanted to maintain Jim Crow [00:04:34] and that were honestly racist. And so it was an avowedly racist strategy started by Richard Nixon. So that's how the Republicans started it. And then. But when you turn to the Democrats recently, they too have done a lot of identity politics. And so South Carolina is a really good example of that, [00:04:49] and it's within the Democratic Party. So they move South Carolina to the first state to vote this time around. Not that they allowed much. Voting in the primaries anyway. Places like Florida just canceled a. Primary elections because that's how Democrats have been authoritarian within their own party. [00:05:07] And so why did they move South Carolina first and why did they have all this anti Bernie Sanders talk in 2020 about race. So because Bernie Sanders did great in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and he won all three of those states in 2020 I'm sorry. [00:05:25] They moved South Carolina to first in 2024. Right. And so South Carolina came in fourth and saved, Joe Biden and South Carolina had saved Hillary Clinton and James Clyburn and other African American leaders. All said you have to vote for the corporate Democrat. [00:05:41] The corporate Democrat is more, in favor of African Americans. So a giant giant lie by Clyburn and almost all the other folks that were in the upper echelon of the Democratic Party. But it worked. They made it appear that the Clintons and Biden were more in favor [00:05:58] of African Americans than Bernie Sanders, and they would set up traps for Bernie Sanders where they would say, well, in Iowa you got more white voters than in New Hampshire, you got more white voters. I know there's more white voters in those states. So you don't want South Carolina to be first, Or are you against black voters? [00:06:15] And they did this over and over and over again. And Symone Sanders herself did something akin to that as well, even though she worked for Bernie in the past. So what were they doing? They were using identity politics against Bernie Sanders to help, by the way, a super old white man and a white lady with an enormous amount of power. [00:06:33] Okay, so it was so callous having nothing to do with their concern about actual policy. It was just used as a way to not attack Republicans, but attack fellow Democrats by using identity politics. Now, there's two other things that they use identity politics for, [00:06:50] and that is democratic elites who are minorities say it's really important to have representation. No, it's way more important to have higher wages for black folks, Latinos, everybody in the country, white people, everybody. Right. It's much more important that they all have health care [00:07:05] that affects their lives infinitely more. But that wasn't the argument. The argument was don't worry about policy. Representation at the very, very top is what's important, almost always said by a Democrat who was a minority. Right. And so that doesn't mean all Democrats are minorities fit into that? [00:07:22] Of course not. Right. And a lot of good progressives and populists are are minorities. And I'm a minority. But you don't see me going around going, well, the most important thing is Muslim representation at the very top. Okay. Because that's an absurd thing to say. That's ridiculous. And so, no, the people, the voters matter much more, [00:07:39] but they never go in that direction. And finally, sorry, but it's absolutely true. Some in the Democratic Party use minorities as human shields and they go. If you don't agree with my opinion, then you're attacking vulnerable communities. [00:07:57] But wait a minute, we have a different idea for how to serve those vulnerable communities. For example, one of the ideas that the elites had was if we just put a couple of black and Latino people at the very top, that will help them. Our idea was, why don't we actually get them higher wages and health care? That will help them a lot more. [00:08:13] And then, no, you're hurting vulnerable communities. No we're not, you're hurting them. But that's just a line that people use to privilege their own perspective and their own position within the Democratic Party and the left wing. So none of this helped. It's elementary politics that you serve all voters, not just some voters, [00:08:34] if you'd like to get more of them. - Elementary. - Yeah. I mean, look, diversity of thought is not something that seems to be celebrated by the Democratic Party. And so I think that's an issue. And look, just to give you a perfect example, I mean, think about what happened [00:08:51] with the California Senate seat after Senator Dianne Feinstein passed away during her final term. I mean, at that point, California Governor Gavin Newsom was able to appoint someone to that vacant seat until the election was held. [00:09:06] And Barbara Lee, a black Democrat who was planning on running for that seat, you know, wanted to be a contender, wanted to be chosen. And she was known for her progressive politics. And guess what? Her her representation was not something that was favored by Gavin Newsom and the [00:09:26] corporate wing of the Democratic Party. So there you have it. But I do want to talk a little bit about where Symone Sanders was on this issue back in 2019 because, as I mentioned, she did work for Senator Bernie Sanders presidential campaign in 2016. [00:09:42] But by 2019, she became a senior advisor for the Biden campaign. And so apparently she took issue with something that Bernie Sanders had said during an interview with GQ. So let me first start with what Senator Sanders [00:09:57] said, and then I'll get to her response. Again, this was in 2019. So Senator Sanders said there are people who are very big into diversity, but whose views end up being not particularly particularly sympathetic [00:10:12] to working people, whether they're white or black or Latino. My main belief is that we need to bring together a coalition of people of black and white and Latino and Asian American and Native American around a progressive agenda which is prepared to take on [00:10:30] an extraordinarily powerful ruling class in this country. That's my view. Many of my opponents do not hold that view, and they think that all that we need is people who are candidates, who are black or white, who are black or Latino or women or gay, [00:10:46] regardless of what they stand for, that the end result is diversity. And then Bernie hastened to add that diversity is enormously important. But there was a bigger goal to change society and create an economy and a government that work for all people. [00:11:05] Symone Sanders took issue with that statement, even though she seems to agree with it today. Back then, in February of 2019, she responded by saying, has he learned lessons since 2016? Yes. He has been actively working since 2016 to reach out to various communities [00:11:22] to be on the ground and listen to folks. He has been to South Carolina a few times, which is really important, but some of the language is going to be problematic. Nobody is saying that. And in a race where there are Latinos and women and black women, [00:11:38] people will use it against him. I don't care how many times you go to the go to South Carolina, you say things like you said to GQ because you think it's appealing. It's alienating to some folks as young black, as a young black millennial, [00:11:53] I don't like hearing it because it speaks to a fundamental misunderstanding about race and gender and what people are looking for. So what are people looking for? Symone Sanders I mean, like, I wish that there was a follow up to that statement. Okay, so if Bernie Sanders doesn't know what he's talking about and you know [00:12:10] better, what are people looking for? Yeah, I just yeah, it's just frustrating. And I do think that, you know, identity politics was specifically used as a weapon against Bernie Sanders in 2016, and it changed the way that he campaigned in 2020. [00:12:25] And while he did perform okay in 2020, he wasn't, you know, as explosive, as popular as he was in his 2016 campaign. Yeah. So I don't understand what the problem with that GQ interview was at all. He said everything he said was perfectly fine. [00:12:42] He said, let's reach all people. And the reaction was, That's problematic. How on God's green earth can that be problematic? So now the good news is Symone Sanders is back to agreeing with us. Okay. So I'll take it. But I don't say that like dismissively. [00:12:57] Look, what would be great is if she and other people like her said, yeah, we went too far in that direction. And it didn't help politically. It didn't help strategically. And and, you know, and I see that Bernie was right. That would be amazing. But she's not going to say that. [00:13:14] Right. So so her saying that we got to get kind of beginning to say we got to get past identity politics and actually go towards class and discussing that so that it addresses all of us. I'll take a look. I've been telling some friends on the far left to take yes for an answer. [00:13:32] I'll take yes for an answer. So thank you, Symone, I appreciate it. And I like that she's going in this new direction. That's wonderful. I also want to address something that one of our YouTube members just wrote in on. Lance Scott said, this analysis is problematic. The identity politics that gave us desegregation lifted the economy for everyone. [00:13:49] Recognizing the institutional nature of racism was the only way to make it possible. But liane, I the only thing I disagree with you on is desegregation is not identity politics. Segregation was identity politics, saying, oh, white people [00:14:04] and black people should be separated, they should have different rights, etc. That's core identity politics. Desegregation is just getting to equality and justice. So here one last example as a matter of policy. So black and white people smoke pot at about the same rate. [00:14:21] And black people are arrested at about 3.7 times rate. Right. About four times larger rate than than white people are. So you don't need to blame white people for that. They didn't do anything wrong. But do you have to fix that system, the institutional racism built [00:14:37] into that system so that there's justice? Of course. But that's not identity politics. That's just making things fair and equal, which is where we all want to be. The identity politics is when people say, well, Bernie Sanders might be the better candidate, but you should vote for this other person because they're a more representative of X [00:14:55] community or Y community or Z community, or use it for whatever other political advantage they have within the Democratic Party, or use it to exclude people and to go away from justice inequality. So that's why I want to be super clear about that. We're all in favor of getting to a point where we have justice [00:15:14] and equality of opportunity. Thanks for watching The Young Turks really appreciate it. Another way to show support is through YouTube memberships. You'll get to interact with us more. There's live chat emojis, badges. You've got emojis of me Anna John Jr. So those are super fun. [00:15:30] But you also get playback of our exclusive member only shows and specials right after they air. So all of that, all you got to do is click that join button right underneath the video. Thank you.