 It's interesting to hear Senator Graham speaks because Other than the partisan rhetoric What you don't hear him talking about are in fact the most important issues facing this country That's what the establishment does Lindsay is a very good and effective representative of the establishment Does Lindsay have a concern that we are the only major country on earth not to guarantee health care to all people That's some 60,000 people a year die Because I don't get to a doctor on time. I didn't I didn't hear much about that that opening statement Lindsay care that we have the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs and that the pharmaceutical industry right now has 1500 paid lobbyists in Washington, DC to make sure that in some cases we pay ten times more for the medicine that we need Did Lindsay talk about the fact that we have in South Carolina and all over this country? Tens of millions of workers working for starvation wages Did he talk about a corrupt political system in which billionaires today can start a super PAC? And I guess you have some familiarity with super PACs. They help fund your campaign Who can spend unlimited amounts of money to elect candidates you have the absurd situation with super PACs in Frequently spend more money than the candidates Themselves I didn't hear Lindsay talk about the crisis of climate change or the reality that scientists are telling us Not Bernie Sanders Lindsay. This is what the best scientists in the world are telling us. We don't get our act together The planet we're gonna be leaving our kids in future generations will becoming increasingly uneenhabitable Talking about great cities like Charleston, South Carolina. You're aware of that. Neighborhoods flooding There are people who are thinking that not only Charleston, but Miami, New York City will be half underwater by the end of the century You got to talk about that. You got to talk about income and wealth inequality. Do you have a concern? The two people own more wealth in the bottom 42% you have a concern in turn of corporate Concentration of ownership. You got three Wall Street firms now BlackRock State Street Vanguard who control 20 trillion dollars in assets They control hundreds and hundreds of corporations throughout this country Bottom line is we are moving toward oligarchy And if we don't stand up and say that we need a government that represents working people and the middle class I Worry very much about the future of this country, and I hope you'll speak to some of those issues Spoiler alert. He doesn't that was my favorite clip from the Fox Nation debate featuring Senator Bernie Sanders and Lindsey Graham courtesy of K study QB who's the only account that actually posted clips of this debate online I feel like it should be available for all of us if we want to watch this since this features United States senators But you can't find it anywhere So I'll link to it down below if you want to watch the full debate, which I'd highly recommend once again Thank you to case study QB for making these clips available But one thing that you'll notice if you watch the full debate is that Bernie Sanders will bring up problems and then respond by saying I'd fix said problem with this policy 60,000 people are dying every single year the cost of healthcare in America is double the cost of Canada's Here's what I do Medicare for all and this is a consistent theme Bernie Sanders speaks only in policy This is his language whereas Lindsey Graham all he does is deflect and obfuscate But luckily for Lindsey Graham Democrats are in power right now and when things go wrong the party in power is to blame So consistently Lindsey Graham brought up the cost of gas prices inflation And yes, it is the case that inflation is a global phenomenon currently and gas prices are indeed high But what you'll notice is that Lindsey Graham never cites a single policy prescription. He says yes gas prices are high But that's because of Democrats. Okay We can we can accept that argument. What specifically would you do from a legislation standpoint to address these things and Lindsey Graham has nothing because he's not offering any policies. He's just saying things are bad blame Democrats now unfortunately for Lindsey Graham that strategy is actually a solid strategy because Americans aren't going to be able to connect the dots Americans aren't going to be able to find the causal mechanisms of the problems that they're currently facing so Lindsey Graham rightfully said, you know, if you're better today then you are then you were two years ago then You must have been really bad back then because things are bad now and he's correct about that So the job of Bernie Sanders throughout this debate in my opinion was to connect the dots Explain specifically why things are going wrong and what policies are needed to address these things but there's an issue with Bernie Sanders argument here and the issue is that He doesn't explicitly condemn Joe Biden and Democrats So that sets up the situation where Lindsey Graham can say well Bernie Sanders is proposing all of these solutions But yet his party is in power and we're not getting these solutions It must be because these socialist solutions don't work and they know that they don't work so they're selling you a Bag of bullshit and it's hard to counter that if you're not actually going to say I disagree with Joe Biden I Bernie Sanders a Democratic socialist Reject the neoliberalism within the Democratic Party. I do caucus with them But I reject overall their economic philosophy. They don't represent what I'm saying But Bernie doesn't necessarily do that. So it's really difficult to communicate to voters Why he's right and why Lindsey Graham is wrong because Lindsey Graham is saying you're in power and they're not doing what you want I understand why Democrats aren't doing what Bernie Sanders wants because they're corrupt I mean Bernie Sanders touched on it But he has to draw a direct line from point A to point B and make these distinctions very clear and Unfortunately, he doesn't do that but still overall. I think that just when you contrast him and Lindsey Graham Lindsey Graham is very transparently trying to distract people and I think that voters are smart enough to acknowledge that Lindsey Graham Doesn't really want to talk about policies. He tap dances around it and whatever he does Address specific policies. It doesn't go well for him case in point. You know what the American people do want? They do want Medicare for all you talk about the joys and beauties of private insurance talk to the millions of workers Who lost their private insurance during COVID? So I think it is time for the working families of this country to stand up demand a government represents all not just a few So I'm calling on senator Schumer to bring Medicare for all to the floor of the Senate sooner rather than later So we can vote on it Because if the American people want it and those people to vote against it should lose their job That's the way it works So in terms of your proposal for Medicare for all I am challenging you and your party who run the Senate to blame it Bring it the floor for a vote and we'll see where the votes are now. Let's go back to gas prices and that is what he did throughout the entire debate Deflect distract and pivot back to gas prices and strategically speaking I think that that is going to be effective because this is something that all Americans are talking about They're all talking about it. It's affecting everyone in a very concrete way. So it's hard to Listen to what he's saying and dismiss it even if he doesn't have a real solution, right? And Bernie Sanders tries to explain with facts why gas prices are high, you know It's it's corporate greed. That's a part of the issue, you know, these fossil fuel companies They're making record profits and they're doing stock buybacks But yet they're claiming that they have to raise the cost of gas and so this is bullshit But you know Lindsey Graham will respond by saying actually no, that's not it The reason why these fossil fuel companies have to raise the cost is you know, despite all these subsidies that we're giving to them They just can't drill Biden wants to ban fossil fuels So because they're unable to drill more well, you know Supply goes down demand goes up and the cost has increased Subsequently as a result now Lindsey Graham Couldn't actually tell you what he would do to lower the cost of gas prices aside from just letting them drill everywhere and destroy our planet Apparently, that's the only way that you can bring down the cost of gasoline But there are alternative solutions to do that you can actually cap the cost of gasoline's ban stock buybacks You can nationalize fossil fuel companies so that way they can't rip off Americans make it a public utility but he doesn't want to do that he doesn't want to do that and You know, whenever he talks about policies, you know to rebut what Bernie Sanders says about Medicare for all For example, as you saw he says, oh, well, you say that Americans want Medicare for all Okay, well, let's vote on Medicare for all in the Senate, you know in theory these senators are representative of the population So if the Americans want Medicare for all then senators will give it to them I mean, what an imbecilic way to describe the United States Legislative system the Senate does not represent the American people and that's the fucking problem people like Lindsey Graham are functionally Representatives of the industries that fund their campaigns. So why should we expect shills who take bribes? Legal bribes in the form of campaign contributions from these industries to do what the American people want when there's that conflict of interest The answer is we can't do that So the problem and really the challenge for Bernie Sanders is Disaggregating himself and his solutions from the broader Democratic Party And I don't think that he was sufficiently doing that And so he even you know took a swipe at Lindsey Graham for beating up on President Biden Because you know, you blame the party in power if things go wrong. That's what Lindsey Graham was doing It's a really savvy Political tactic and Lindsey Graham was doing the easiest thing. He doesn't have to talk about policies right now He just has to say look at how bad Democrats are doing And so it was really incumbent on Bernie Sanders to say These solutions that I'm proposing are not supported by Democrats because of money and politics because of corruption because of this Neoliberalism that have taken that has taken hold in the Democratic Party Neoliberalism let me remind you was a thing that Republicans embraced But as of the 90s, you know with Bill Clinton Neoliberalism became a Democratic Party thing and a lot of folks think that neoliberal just means oh somebody who's really liberal Or it's just a Democrat thing. No, neoliberalism is an economic philosophy where you exclusively propose Private solutions to public problems. So rather than increasing government funding for education to lower the costs while you privatize education You know you invest in voucher programs so people can take that money and give it to a private company so they can profit off of it This is the crux of neoliberalism and Bernie has to explain why the neoliberal policies of the Democratic Party It is in conflict with what he is selling and the problem is that I don't think that he sufficiently Does that and because Bernie Sanders refuses to do that and refuses to criticize the Democratic Party You know that is a flaw in his argumentation which Lindsey Graham was able to exploit and he did case in point I want to remind you again that your government is run by Democrats Now that doesn't mean that we've got all the answers Republicans, but I find this astonishing That the people in charge of your government Are not gonna vote on things that's Bernie thinks will fix the problem Why because they don't want to vote on these ideas because they won't fix the problem So here here's the point if you want things to change You got to get new people into Washington to run the place Because the answer to America's problems center Sanders is not more socialism Your own message. What time is it is time to raise taxes on the rich? You're completely on message Why do we have such a problem at the border center Sanders is because policy matters Two million people will come across this country illegally Only God knows how many we will miss It's a complete Accident waiting to happen down there We went from having a secure border having Mexico work with us We changed our laws so we could have control and it's all gone away folks If you don't change she's running Washington the worst is yet to come when it comes to illegal immigration gas prices So right on cue he deflects and you know starts fear-mongering about immigrants Lindsey What would you do other than? Implementing more fascism to solve the immigration problem in this country. Are you or your party proposing? Comprehensive immigration reform. No, it's just be really really cruel and that will dissuade people from coming except that hasn't worked being cruel is not a policy fix what is a policy fix is immigration reform and Because in my opinion we destroyed these Latin American countries and exploited them. I Think that these people from Latin America and Mexico. They're not just entitled to residency here They're entitled to citizenship if we fuck up their countries. We break their countries and their forms of government We have to fix it. We have to at least right that wrong So letting them come here is important and he tries to fear-monger as if they're this terrorist threat I'm sorry Lindsey Graham. I'm not afraid of immigrants the people who I'm afraid of look like you It's these people They're the ones who are doing terrorism in the United States the white supremacists that your party continues to embolden So that's where Lindsey Graham goes wrong, right? Because you can't try to gin up fear about Immigrants when this is a more abstract threat people don't see immigrants barging into their homes as Lindsey Graham wants them to believe will happen at any moment, but they can feel the gas prices increased They can see the impact of inflation on their wallets So, you know Lindsey Graham, he's gonna win over the people who are already predisposed to be xenophobic bigots But where he's persuasive, I think is when he says that Democrats are in charge And therefore if they wanted to fix these problems, they could but they're not doing that now Bernie Sanders It's hard to disagree with anything that he says because everything that he says is Factually correct, but again, I've got to point out that Bernie Sanders absolutely must explain the differences between him and Joe Biden and if Bernie Sanders said yes, these are my policy solutions Here's why Biden has failed as a president Biden is not strong enough He's not exerting pressure on people in his own party who's obstructing his agenda Biden, you know and the Democratic Party keeps coming up with excuses Oh the filibuster the parliamentarian and that's not very persuasive to people So because Biden has failed in that regard because he's not strong enough The American people will look at Lindsey Graham and when he says are things getting better They're gonna say no, of course not. They're not it must be because Biden is failing So that's why Bernie Sanders can't allow him and the Democratic Party's left flank to get lumped in With the failures of the Democratic Party. This is why Contrasting comparing and you know explaining why their failures is essential But Bernie Sanders does not do that and I understand why he doesn't want to do that He probably wants to try to maintain this relationship with Joe Biden and try to get some things done But that ship has sailed Bernie the ship has failed Biden has failed the ship has sailed more specifically and You're not gonna get shit done with Joe Biden. He has decided that he is not going to meet this moment he's not going to do anything to actually Legitimately fix these problems and you know that but you have to say it because if you don't say it Then Americans will just come away with thinking man Bernie Sanders. He's making a lot of sense, but at the same time Why aren't the Democrats doing what Bernie Sanders wants when they're in power? People don't know about this if you talk to a normie Democrat They assume that all Democrats support Medicare for all they assume that you know every single Democrat is Progressive and maybe there's some anomalies here and there are like mansion and cinema But but by and large Democrats are good This is what normie Democrats think but you have to bring them over From the normie Democrat side to the leftist position Because the normie Democrat side the average Democrat is as conservative as a Reagan Republican Right, so as much as the Republican party continues the ship to the right The modern-day Democratic party like Joe Biden has filled the conservative void left behind by Republicans So they're de facto the conservative party whereas Republicans are now a far-right extremist death cult Who poses a threat to democracy? so if Bernie Sanders just allows Lindsey Graham To you know lump Bernie with Biden and Bernie's not making these Contrasts then unfortunately. I don't think that the messaging when it comes to policy will land right So the last thing that I want to share with you is this clip where Bernie Sanders Does a really important job of calling out the extremism within the Republican party And how they now pose a threat to democracy itself watch this slimy tactic that Lindsey Graham will use here. It's it's the same tactic. He's using deflect In fact, he's going to project a little unclaimed that this is what Democrats do to project hyper focusing on Donald Trump But overall he ignores A core issue that even you know endangers himself as somebody who isn't going along with what Trump says Any more as much as he's licking Trump's boots, but just take a look. I think many leading political scientists will tell you That right now we're looking for the first time in my lifetime And yours had a real threat to the existence of democracy in america And you know why because we have a former president His name is Donald Trump Goes around the country telling people. Hey, I won the election In fact, I probably won it by a landslide, but they they stole it. They took it away from me All right. Now that happens to be what we call a big lie And yet many of the republicans That senator Graham are asking you to vote for are maintaining that big lie. What does that mean? It goes beyond trump. It goes beyond the 2020 election It means what they are saying is the entire system You can't trust anybody And if you can't trust the election results, then what is the obvious alternative? We need a strong man All right, conservatives once who I think was hungry to meet with mr. Orban Who runs an authoritarian type society? So the struggle we're facing is not just with Lindsay and I disagree on this or that issue, which we do It is the future of american democracy and when we whether we move to authoritarianism based On among other things a very big lie. Well quickly. Do you address that sent Trump lost the election? Can you address that senator? I mean, can you say definitively the election was not stolen? Yeah, I voted to certify the election. There was a mill and balloting shenan Uh chicanery out there, but no, no, I voted to certify the election president binds the president And whether he won the election. Yeah, okay Now what about all of the candidates out there who are trying to say that he did your republican candidates? So you want people to vote for well, like you know court about the people saying defund the police you talk to them I'll talk to that crowd. Well, your car is a lot larger than my car. So here's the point Why is he talking about trump because he can't talk about anything else? He can't tell you rationally why there's no end to gas prices. It's always somebody else It's the oil companies. It's the drug companies. These policies are not working center centers We like president trump or not. He secured our border Raining and fossil fuel companies won't work. Lindsey Graham says as if that's a policy that's been implemented at all This is why bernie sanders absolutely must and all leftists who are in congress must Disaggregate themselves from the neoliberal corporate wing of the democratic party Because joe biden is getting attacked for something he did not implement He's getting credit for things that he says he supports but doesn't fight for if biden actually did reign in the fossil fuel industry The pharmaceutical industry that would have a tangible impact a concrete impact On the lives of the american people, but he hasn't done that But you know, um his inaction is being used In a way that's that's so disingenuous because lindsay gramm is saying well You want it to reign in fossil fuel companies and you did and now gas prices are high Therefore these socialist policies don't work and americans don't have anything to go off of because perhaps they just assume build back better Past because biden is in charge. So it's it's really important. I cannot stress this this enough I know that this is redundant, but I want to make this very clear progressive democrats Have to explain why corporate democrats are failures when it comes to policies But overall, I don't want to be too down on bernie sanders because it's really important that the american voters understand That this focus on the 2020 election is not a mere distraction The washington post reports about a third of the way through the 2022 primaries voters have nominated scores of republican candidates For state and federal office who say the 2020 election was rigged according to a new analysis by the washington post So this by far is one of the most important issues of this era in politics It's not a distraction Because all of these disagreements on policy make no difference if we lose what's left of our democracy if americans don't have the capability of choosing Leaders Yes, these leaders are shills. They're corrupt. They're beholden to special interests But if we at least have the ability to choose them then the potential for change Even if its minimal is still there, but once we lose that capability That's when all of our power is gone. It's already difficult enough To affect change when you have shills like lindsay graham who get elected and just do the bidding of their corporate donors But when we also lose the ability to choose leaders And you can already argue that we don't have the ability to choose who we want because there's so much money in politics And we just can't compete with multinational corporations But either way if we have the situation where republicans are so authoritarian that they are Paving the way for a dictatorship with donald trump or some other fascist at the head That's when all hope is officially dead In this country. So these policy debates are important But at the end of the day They don't matter if they're not happening in good faith They don't matter if shills like lindsay graham are effectively Representatives for these industries that fund his campaigns. So this is why the country is doomed because we're not having a good faith conversation here Right. This is a debate between somebody who cares bernie sanders and somebody who is a shill for a multitude of industries Literally, he is a shill. He gets money from them, right? So why would he represent the american people when the american people and what they want and desires in conflict with what this These industries that fund him won. So that's why these debates are, you know, so important I feel like the american people have already been one over to the progressive side when you look at These various polls and go issue by issue americans agree with the left The problem is that there's a lot of confusion. There's a lot of opportunity for deflection and obfuscation because they don't understand Specifically why these things that they want aren't aren't getting accomplished, right? Which is why they kind of go back and forth They elect democrats and then they stay home when they're disappointed Then republicans get elected, but then they come back out to elect democrats It's just this fucking pendulum that goes back and forth. And so what we have to do Is explain it to the american people connect the dots explain both parties are failing Both parties are failing. That's an undeniable fact Both parties are not equal one of them is a threat to democracy another is incompetent explain specifically What kinds of people have to be elected in order to solve the crises that this country faces? And that specifically is progressive democrats the country is progressive And that's who we need to elect Not all democrats are the same and certainly not all republicans are the same But those distinctions are getting a lot more Blurred as we saw with lindsay graham who didn't really want to talk about how the republican party is Increasingly becoming more and more authoritarian So this was an entertaining debate. I would encourage you to watch all of it But those were just the moments that stood out to me. I think that bernie sanders ultimately won this debate But in terms of bernie sanders performance It was imperfect and until bernie sanders can really draw these distinctions between himself and democrats I just don't think that the american people Are going to understand and you've got to understand You've got to understand why Things are the way that they are and americans have some sense of what's going wrong But it's it's very blurry and bernie's job Is to bring that into focus for them and until he does that by saying democrats are failing because of the money in politics Then arguments that lindsay graham uses like oh, well look at the gas prices That's gonna land with them because they feel that right now They feel it so until they truly have a concrete understanding of the way that this country functions Will be in this predicament in perpetuity