Bernie Sanders has been at this, with consistency, for decades.

By Alex Caputo-Pearl

As the president of United Teachers Los Angeles, I am proud that our union, in November 2019, endorsed Bernie Sanders for the Democratic Party primary. We had two months of intense discussion within our membership, had chapter leaders from 600 schools cast advisory votes (which went 72 percent for Sanders), and, ultimately, our House of Representatives voted by 80 percent to endorse Sanders.

Many of our members are excitedly and relentlessly volunteering for Sanders.

We endorsed Sanders for five main reasons:

1. His education platform, which was out much earlier than most other candidates’ platforms, was and is the best of any major Democratic Party candidate in decades. He calls for a tripling of Title I funding, a massive increase in funding for special education through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, opposition to vouchers and a moratorium on unregulated charter school growth, as well as increases in teacher pay. Sanders calls out the billionaires who have been funding privatization and undermining democracy in public schools.
2. Sanders’ broader social and racial justice program is unparalleled, and he is clear on how he will pay for initiatives in the richest country in the history of the world — by requiring more from corporations, billionaires and the wealthy, who have benefited from hundreds of years of public infrastructure and taxpayer dollars. The students of Los Angeles and their families — 90 percent of color and 85 percent low-income — would dramatically benefit from initiatives such as Medicare for All, diverting jail funding to mental health, challenging police violence against people of color, immigration reform, and more.
3. Sanders’ labor platform is without comparison; for the first time in decades, a candidate is putting forward a fighting program to dramatically expand the labor movement, and therefore the leverage of working and low-income people. From changing labor law to make it easier for workers to join unions and harder for employers to gut unions, to building infrastructure for sectoral bargaining, to winning Medicare for All, Sanders is unique in the history of the labor movement. Medicare for All would give everyone high-quality healthcare and save employers millions of dollars that could then go toward workers’ salaries and other benefits.
4. Sanders is the first major presidential candidate to understand this is not about an individual, but about building a social movement to change the U.S. and the world. The social movement infrastructure that is building around Sanders is like nothing we’ve seen in recent decades. His base of support is multiracial, led by women, and incredibly diverse. Not just electing a president, but building a social movement, gives us great leverage to change things.
5. Sanders has the best chance to beat Donald Trump. In head-to-head polling, Sanders does the best. In grassroots fundraising, which is another indicator of strength against Trump, he far outpaces other Democratic candidates. This grassroots fundraising spreads deeply into states that Trump won in 2016. Sanders’ voters in the first primaries have reflected the kind of diversity needed to beat Trump, and his polls in states that Trump won — like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — are very strong. The campaign apparatus includes skilled organizers and people who have been in the movement for decades, with deep experience and connection to the ground. Tremendous energy is being generated, not just in blue states, but among working-class communities that feel abandoned by Trump.

Bernie Sanders has been at this, with consistency, for decades. He knows how to run and win campaigns, and he knows how to build movements. Sanders is the best candidate to beat Trump, for the Democratic Party, for movement-building, and for social and racial justice.