New York, NY – Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders brought an unapologetically worker-centric message to the first official rally of his 2020 presidential run at Brooklyn College this Saturday — putting the private health insurance industry, Big Pharma and the Military Industrial Complex on notice that his campaign will not only beat Trump, but spark a political revolution that will ultimately give rise to an economy that “works for all of us.”
“Whether they like it or not” — Sanders declared Medicare for All will be achieved once he is in the White House. He also vowed to raise the federal minimum wage to at least $15 an hour, make it easier for workers to join unions, produce 13 million decent-paying jobs fixing the nation’s crumbling infrastructure and raise Social Security benefits for impoverished senior citizens.
Sanders supporters waited for hours outside Brooklyn College’s Midwood campus in lines that stretched for blocks and recalled the “rock star-like” rallies the longtime Democratic-Socialist routinely drew throughout his 2016 presidential run.
In addressing the outdoor gathering—Sanders said his administration is going to “end austerity for working families” and end tax breaks and loopholes for giant multi-national corporations based in the U.S.
“You are going to start paying your fair share of taxes,” the Vermont senator declared. “We are not going to allow billionaires to stash money in the Cayman Islands.”
Sanders also outlined a platform to end to private prisons, expand childcare and alleviate existing student debt.
The most popular candidate in the Democratic field of presidential challengers, said the nation will no longer continue to spend $700 billion a year on “never ending wars,” and instead highlighted investments in affordable housing, education and transforming the nation’s energy system away from fossil fuels.
We are going to win this election with the strongest grassroots campaign in the history of American politics. — Bernie Sanders.
“We are going to win this election with the strongest grassroots campaign in the history of American politics,” Sanders said.
The Sanders 2020 campaign burst out of the gate on February 19, raising $10 million in less than one week — $6 million of that coming in the first 24-hours of launching.
Despite the enthusiasm surrounding this weekend’s rally at Brooklyn College, many die-hard Sanders supporters fear a repeat of his 2016 presidential run, in which the Democratic National Committee [DNC] actively worked to undermine his candidacy in favor of Hillary Clinton.
During a CNN Town Hall televised earlier in the week, however, Sanders said “We’ve come a long way since then.”
