Bernie Sanders: Democrats need to wake up after Brexit
Bernie Sanders is warning Democrats to get serious about income inequality because the same beliefs that led to the outcome of the Brexit vote last week could benefit Republicans in November.
"The notion that Donald Trump could benefit from the same forces that gave the Leave proponents a majority in Britain should sound an alarm for the Democratic Party in the United States," the Vermont senator wrote in an op-ed published by The New York Times.
Voters in Britain voted 52 percent to 48 percent on Thursday to leave the European Union in a historic referendum that resulted in Prime Minister David Cameron announcing that he plans to resign within three months.
"Millions of American voters, like the Leave supporters, are understandably angry and frustrated by the economic forces that are destroying the middle class," added Sanders.
Democrats need to make it clear, Sanders said, that "we stand with those who are struggling and who have been left behind." He said throughout his presidential campaign, he encountered voters in 46 states who are struggling as a result of a globalized economy that favors the wealthy.
Sanders said British voters decided to leave the E.U. because many have been fed up with their standard of living.
"Could this rejection of the current form of the global economy happen in the United States? You bet it could," he said.
Sanders has not yet dropped out of the presidential race, but said last Friday that he intends to vote for his rival Hillary Clinton in November's general election.
President Obama warned in an interview released Tuesday that people shouldn't engage in "hysteria" over the United Kingdom's vote.
