It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism summary

After he suspended his campaign in 2020, Sanders endorsed Biden. He used his grassroots network to canvas for him and significantly shaped his progressive platform. His main goal was simple: get rid of Trump.

They succeeded. Biden won the 2020 election. But it was hardly a victory for Sanders because he knew that the Democrats had no real intention of sticking to the progressive promises made on the campaign trail.

During the pandemic, America’s 725 billionaires increased their wealth by 73 percent. Meanwhile, millions of average Americans struggled to survive. Health-care workers put their life on the line to take care of the sick. And tens of thousands of people actually died because they were forced to go to work despite the risk of infection.

This is just the latest example of the injustice unfettered capitalism produces. Politics has failed to put guide rails on the greed of billionaires and big corporations. As a result, the US now has more wealth and income inequality than ever. Right now, the top 1 percent of society owns more wealth than the bottom 92 percent.

Health care in the US is expensive, inaccessible, and overly bureaucratic. That’s because the US health-care system is designed to make money. In 2021, it made a record $100 billion profit.

Meanwhile, the infant and maternal death rates in the US rival those of the developing world, especially for minorities. Forty-four percent of Americans struggle to pay for their health insurance. Twenty-nine percent say they couldn’t afford appropriate medical care if they needed it right now.

Ninety percent of US media today is owned by just eight big media conglomerates – companies like Comcast, Disney, and Netflix. These companies own big news channels like CNN but also smaller local TV and radio channels. In 2012, Jeff Bezos cut the middleman and bought the Washington Post – and with it, a lot of social influence.

It’s no surprise that many people today don’t trust the media. Trump harnessed this distrust when he started complaining about “fake news” during his presidential campaign. But the problem isn’t that journalists are lying.

Bernie Sanders believes that It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism. To him, real politics starts with organizing at a local level: getting working-class candidates into city councils, school boards, and state legislative seats; standing with workers and unions; showing those Americans who feel hopeless and abandoned that change is possible.

Sanders believes that mass movement politics can overcome unfettered capitalism. His ideas include policies that would get money out of politics, make the voting process more democratic, revitalize the media, treat health care as a human right, support workers, make billionaires pay taxes, and protect the environment.