Following the lead of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who said his party “is lost, disconnected, and alienated from the working-class Americans it once represented,” Senator Bernie Sanders took a swing at throwing the Democrats under the bus.
Appearing on The New York Times’ “The Opinions” podcast, Sanders admitted what millions of voters already sense — the Democrat Party is collapsing from within. “When I ran for president, one of the things that I learned is there ain’t much of a Democratic Party,” said the senator, who identifies as a Socialist.
Sanders described a party that has grown “elitist and hollowed out,” more at home “at cocktail parties in New York and Los Angeles” than in the working-class towns that once defined it. “When people think about the Democratic Party, they think of these cocktail parties… where wealthy people mingle with consultants, mingle with the leadership,” he said. “That’s not much of a party.”
The Vermont senator, who ran twice for president as a Democrat, said party insiders “hated” his attempts to bring in working Americans without elite credentials or political ties. “They hated the idea of all these people whose hands were a little bit dirty,” he said. “‘It’s my party, man. You ain’t getting in.’”
Sanders warned that Democrats risk “going down with the Titanic” if they fail to reconnect with ordinary Americans. But the damage may already be done. The New York Times reports the party has lost over 2.1 million registered voters since 2020, largely working-class and minority voters shifting right. A May Puck/Echelon poll found most likely voters now describe the party as “liberal, weak, and corrupt.”
“If the Democratic Party is to survive — maybe it will, maybe it won’t — the transformation has to be to open the doors,” Sanders said. For now, those doors remain closed.