Bernie Sanders has the Right Idea:

Time to start a Party of the 99 percent

Senator Bernie Sanders understands the incredible problems facing the 99 percent who must work for a living. This is why he wrote these words on September 24.¹

“What we are witnessing right now is the rise of two Americas. One for the billionaire class. And one for everybody else.

In one America, the richest people are becoming obscenely richer and have never, ever, had it so good. That America is overflowing with unimaginable wealth, greed, and opulence that makes the Gilded Age seem very modest.

And then there is a second America – an America where a majority of people live paycheck to paycheck, struggling to secure the very basic necessities of life – food, healthcare, housing and education.

The simple truth is that never before in our history have so few had so much wealth and power while so many live in economic desperation.

In the first America, one man – Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, worth more than $480bn, owns more wealth than the bottom 52% of American households.

The 1% lives in a world completely removed from ordinary Americans. They don’t ride overcrowded subways to get to work or sit in traffic jams to get home. They fly on private jets and helicopters they own. They live in mansions all over the world, send their kids to the most elite private schools and vacation on their own islands. And, for fun, some spend millions to fly off into space on their own rocket ships.

And then there is the other America, where the vast majority of our people live. For them, the economy is not just broken, it is collapsing. In this America, despite a massive increase in worker productivity, real weekly wages for the average American worker are lower today than they were more than 52 years ago.

In this America, people are unable to afford a doctor’s visit (if they’re lucky enough to find one); are paying over half of their limited incomes on rent or a mortgage; and are unable to afford the outrageous cost of childcare or the ability to send their kids to college. In this America, the price of vegetables, fruit and other healthy foods is beyond the budget for many.

Enough is enough.

As supreme court justice Louis Brandeis said in 1933: “We can have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of the few, but we cannot have both.”

That warning is even more relevant today.

In this pivotal moment in American history, we must create a government and an economy that works for all, or we will continue sliding into oligarchy – where the billionaire class controls our government, our economy and our future.

The choice is clear. Let’s stand together for democracy and justice.

Bernie is right to call out the 1 percent for destroying our economy and democracy. But we need to do more than “stand together.” The 99 percent must have its own political party that is independent of the Democrats and Republicans who both work for the 1 percent. Then the majority, the 99 percent, can lead a revolution and build a world based on cooperation, where everyone has what they need and looks out for each other. Cooperation is in our DNA because it’s how the human race survived for thousands of years before written history. If we join together to fight for the common good, we have a beautiful world to win.

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