Bernie Sanders presents new book in Bozar: “We want progressive change” | Art & Literature

Exactly seven years after former President Barack Obama took the podium in the Center for Fine Arts in Brussels, Senator Bernie Sanders also had his say. Apache editor-in-chief Karl Van den Broeck was allowed to take on the role of moderator. Sanders started with an ominous message about the near future of the United States, and by extension: Europe. “The world is evolving towards an increasingly oligarian society,” the senator from Vermont said.

This is also the case in the United States, “where a small economic elite has never had as much power as it does today,” Sanders said. “These people at the top are not nice guys. Today they already have so much money, tomorrow it will only become more,” Sanders warns.

According to him, that small elite has a lot to say. “They pretend to be good people and make donations to universities or charities. Some are advocates for women’s rights, LGBTQIA+ rights, or fight against racial inequality. But at the end of the day, these billionaires are above all extremely greedy,” Sanders explains. “There is one problem that dominates all other problems: whoever has the money has the power.”

At the same time, workers or “working class” are finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet. Sixteen percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, 18 million American families spend more than half of their income on housing, Sanders says. “And that is no different in Europe.” In the book, Sanders does not avoid any problem, from the impending AI revolution to climate change.

Fortunately, Sanders not only outlines problems and there are also positive developments underway in the United States, such as the significant increase in the number of unions in large American companies such as the Amazon Labor Union with Chris Smalls and Starbucks Workers United. The fact that President Biden is the first American president in history to visit a strike picket last September during a strike by American auto industry workers in Michigan is historical proof of this.

In his book, Sanders points to the inability of the Democratic party in the United States to contain the discontent of working people. “As a Democratic party, we must embrace these people and fight for them,” Sanders said. Only in this way can the authoritarian threat posed by former Republican President Donald Trump be averted.

Sanders therefore urgently needs to form a new progressive and left-wing coalition to re-elect Biden as president in the next legislature.

If that does not happen, Sanders does not see a bright future. “Millions of Americans no longer believe in the political system. They no longer believe in parties, in the media, or even in science,” says Sanders. According to Sanders, many working Americans can no longer afford the necessary basic means of subsistence, “but are the Democrats talking about the problems of these people? No. That creates a divide between the Democratic party and working people.”

At the end of the day, change cannot be stopped, Sanders warns. “But what change? One where democracy flourishes, or one with more authoritarianism like Trump? We do not want a fascist change, but a progressive one. The antidote is to expose Trump, but at the same time really do something for the working class.”