The Democrat Party is "an elitist institution" that's "way out of touch" with the country's working class, according to liberal Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
In a wide-ranging interview for The New York Times Opinion series, Sanders said he learned "there is no Democratic Party" when he ran for the 2016 presidential nomination.
"One of the things that I learned is there isn't much of a Democratic Party. There are people on the top," Sanders told Times Opinion editorial director David Leonhardt.
"When I think about a party: People disagree, they yell and shout at each other. ... But I think sometimes, when people think about the Democratic Party, they think of these cocktail parties in New York City or Los Angeles where wealthy people mingle with consultants, mingle with the leadership.
"That's not much of a party. That's really kind of an elitist institution."
Earlier in the interview, Sanders said, "The Democratic Party has abdicated — they've given up. They're not fighting for the working class.
"What the Democratic Party has been is a billionaire-funded, consultant-driven party — and way out of touch with where the working class of this country is."
Sanders, 84, also ran for president in 2020. He remains a liberal spokesman despite younger socialist-minded politicians such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.
The senator traced a shift in the Democrat Party to the 1970s, when the party began to pander to corporate money instead of labor and unions.
"From the '70s on ... the party began to pay more attention to the needs of the corporate world and the wealthy, rather than working-class people," he told Leonhardt.
Sanders explained why many former Democrats voted for President Donald Trump in the past three presidential elections.
"They voted for Trump because he said: 'I am going to do something. The system is broken. I'm going to do something,'" Sanders said.
"What did the Democrats say? 'Well, in 13 years, if you're making $40,000, $48,000, we may be able to help your kid get to college. But if you're making a penny more, we can't quite do that. The system is OK — we're going to nibble around the edges.'
"Trump smashed the system."
Sanders' remarks aimed at Democrat elites echoes what Republicans have long argued: that the heart of America is the blue-collar worker, not cocktail-party consultants.
He claimed Democrats backing a free-trade agreement with China is an example of ignoring the working class.
"No worker in America thought it was a good idea," Sanders said. "The corporate world did. ... Every one of us who talked to unions understood that the result of that would be the collapse of manufacturing in America and the loss of millions of good-paying jobs."
Sanders' comments come amid mounting concern within Democrat circles that the party has lost touch with the very voters that once formed its backbone, particularly working-class whites who have migrated toward the GOP.
The Daily Signal reported last year that nearly two-thirds of white union households lean Republican.
With the midterm and 2026 elections looming, Sanders may be trying to pull the party back toward genuine working-class populism.
However, his remarks suggest Democrats may have already lost their core constituency.
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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