Bernie Sanders' Labor Day Speech to the AFL-CIO

Not many major Labor Day speeches today. The most prominent was Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’ speech to the AFL-CIO in New Hampshire. (As far as I can see, President Trump mostly released a tweet. Well, fine.)

Sanders began, naturally, of course, how else would he start, by bashing Trump as anti-labor. He said that Trump is “trying to divide our nation up based on the color of our skin, based on the country in which we were born, based on our sexual orientation, based on our religion.” In contrast, Sanders said, “Our job as trade unionists, our job as progressives, is to bring the American people together and to fight any and all attempts to divide us up.” Note that Sanders specifically identified himself as a trade unionist. This established unity with his audience. Sanders also spoke in favor of “dreamers” and opposed Trump’s “cruel” impending decision to suspend their rights. 

Senator Bernie Sanders

Sanders turned to income inequality, which he addressed in standard progressive fashion, but with a nicely phrased set of cumulative questions like these:

“Should America have an economy in which 52% of all new income generated today is going to the top 1%?” 

“Do we want an economy that works for all of us and not just the handful on top?”

“How does it happen that most of the new jobs being created are low-wage and part-time?”

“How does it happen that in the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, we are the only country not to guarantee health care to people as a right?”

“How does it happen, brothers and sisters, that the United States of America, not so many years ago, a few decades ago, we had the best educated work force in the world?”

For rhetorical people, Sanders combined the methods of parallel language and rhetorical question. If your audience already agrees with you, these can be quite powerful because they have a cumulative effect. 

Sanders’ use of the phrase “brothers and sisters” is significant, for members of a trade union address themselves as brothers and sisters (e.g., “Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners”) and by using that phrase, Sanders reinforced his solidarity with the union movement.   

Near the end, Sanders told the crowd that “health care is a right.”  This, of course, is a major distinction between the conservative and liberal perspectives, since many conservatives deny that health care is a right. Medicare for all is, of course, Sanders’ signature issue. 

A stirring speech (or an irritating one for conservatives, I suppose), but a speech just aimed at true believers. Sanders did little to prove his points or to advance the public dialogue; instead, he kept his progressive agenda on the public mind. Sanders is not the sort of candidate who becomes president, but he is the sort of progressive who, like William Jennings Bryan or Robert LaFollette, brings new ideas to the public. Let’s remember that most of Bryan and LaFollette’s radical ideas eventually were widely accepted. Will Sanders’ ideas be widely accepted one day? Time will tell. For the moment, the conservative Concord Monitor published a column calling the speech “Bernie Sanders’s Labor Day Fantasies.” 

Random comment: I find it ironic that public education has become a distinctly liberal issue; in my youth, public education was a conservative issue. Many conservatives seem not only to have abandoned their support of public education, but to reject public education.  As a retired academic person, I find that appalling. How can an ignorant nation remain strong? Answer: it can’t. 

Another random comment: Labor Day celebrates the ordinary working American. President Trump promised not to forget them. Will he? As far as I can see, he didn't even give a Labor Day speech.

Official US Senate photo