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Democratic National Committee chairman Jaime Harrison is seen before Vice President Kamala Harris conceded the presidential race to Donald Trump at Howard University on November 6, 2024.
"Typically, after a major electoral defeat," said one progressive strategist, "party leaders step aside to create opportunities for fresh perspectives and voices that haven't yet had a chance to lead."
After U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders offered his perspective on why Vice President Kamala Harris lost both the popular vote and Electoral College to President-elect Donald Trump in Tuesday's election—repeating his consistent warning that the Democratic Party must center economic justice—top official Jaime Harrison signaled once again that the party is unlikely to hear Sanders' call.
Harrison, the chair of the Democratic National Committee and a former lobbyist for clients including Bank of America and BP, called Sanders' statement "straight up BS" and touted pro-worker policies embraced by the Biden-Harris administration, suggesting that the party has sufficiently worked for economic justice—and appearing to ignore all evidence that working-class voters gravitated toward Trump and the Republican Party.
"[President Joe] Biden was the most-pro worker president of my lifetime—saved union pensions, created millions of good-paying jobs, and even marched in a picket line," said Harrison.
Biden has been praised by progressives and labor unions for establishing pro-worker rules on overtime pay and noncompete agreements, urging Amazon workers in Alabama to unionize, presiding over a National Labor Relations Board that investigated numerous unfair labor practices by large corporations and sided with workers, and becoming the first U.S. president to walk on a picket line with striking workers.
He also worked closely with Sanders on one of his signature pieces of legislation, the Build Back Better Act, which would have invested in expanded child tax credits, public education, and free community college, among other provisions—but the bill was torpedoed by right-wing U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.), then a Democrat, and the Republican Party.
In his statement on Thursday, Sanders said "it should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working-class people would find that the working class has abandoned them."
He asked whether the "well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party" would "learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign?"
"Probably not," he added.
While Harris included in her platform plans to end price-gouging in the food industry, expand the child tax credit, and extend Medicare coverage to home healthcare, dental, and vision care, she alarmed progressive advocates by proposing a smaller capital gains tax for wealthy Americans.
As Common Dreamsreported on Thursday, Biden advisers have also posited this week that Harris muddied her early message that Trump was a "stooge of corporate interests" by elevating billionaire businessman Mark Cuban as one of her top surrogates.
Whether Democratic leaders including Harrison will listen to those concerns from Biden's inner circle remains to be seen, but he expressed hostility when the message came from Sanders.
"There are a lot of post-election takes and this one ain't a good one," said Harrison.
Journalist Mitchell Northam noted that the Democratic Party has studiously ignored and expressed hostility toward Sanders' call for centering economic justice and cutting ties with Wall Street since the 2016 election, when the senator ran for president as a Democrat.
Sanders' message this week got an unlikely boost from conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks, who in 2020 dismissed the veteran, consistently popular senator as "useless" and "marginal."
"I like it when Democratic candidates run to the center," wrote Brooks. "But I have to confess that Harris did that pretty effectively and it didn't work. Maybe the Democrats have to embrace a Bernie Sanders-style disruption—something that will make people like me feel uncomfortable."
Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch applauded Brooks' "striking moment of self-awareness."
Progressive Democratic strategist Waleed Shahid expressed hope that Democratic leaders such as Harrison will do the same.
"Typically, after a major electoral defeat," he said, "party leaders step aside to create opportunities for fresh perspectives and voices that haven't yet had a chance to lead."
Trump and Musk are on an unconstitutional rampage, aiming for virtually every corner of the federal government. These two right-wing billionaires are targeting nurses, scientists, teachers, daycare providers, judges, veterans, air traffic controllers, and nuclear safety inspectors. No one is safe. The food stamps program, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are next. It’s an unprecedented disaster and a five-alarm fire, but there will be a reckoning. The people did not vote for this. The American people do not want this dystopian hellscape that hides behind claims of “efficiency.” Still, in reality, it is all a giveaway to corporate interests and the libertarian dreams of far-right oligarchs like Musk. Common Dreams is playing a vital role by reporting day and night on this orgy of corruption and greed, as well as what everyday people can do to organize and fight back. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. |
After U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders offered his perspective on why Vice President Kamala Harris lost both the popular vote and Electoral College to President-elect Donald Trump in Tuesday's election—repeating his consistent warning that the Democratic Party must center economic justice—top official Jaime Harrison signaled once again that the party is unlikely to hear Sanders' call.
Harrison, the chair of the Democratic National Committee and a former lobbyist for clients including Bank of America and BP, called Sanders' statement "straight up BS" and touted pro-worker policies embraced by the Biden-Harris administration, suggesting that the party has sufficiently worked for economic justice—and appearing to ignore all evidence that working-class voters gravitated toward Trump and the Republican Party.
"[President Joe] Biden was the most-pro worker president of my lifetime—saved union pensions, created millions of good-paying jobs, and even marched in a picket line," said Harrison.
Biden has been praised by progressives and labor unions for establishing pro-worker rules on overtime pay and noncompete agreements, urging Amazon workers in Alabama to unionize, presiding over a National Labor Relations Board that investigated numerous unfair labor practices by large corporations and sided with workers, and becoming the first U.S. president to walk on a picket line with striking workers.
He also worked closely with Sanders on one of his signature pieces of legislation, the Build Back Better Act, which would have invested in expanded child tax credits, public education, and free community college, among other provisions—but the bill was torpedoed by right-wing U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.), then a Democrat, and the Republican Party.
In his statement on Thursday, Sanders said "it should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working-class people would find that the working class has abandoned them."
He asked whether the "well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party" would "learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign?"
"Probably not," he added.
While Harris included in her platform plans to end price-gouging in the food industry, expand the child tax credit, and extend Medicare coverage to home healthcare, dental, and vision care, she alarmed progressive advocates by proposing a smaller capital gains tax for wealthy Americans.
As Common Dreamsreported on Thursday, Biden advisers have also posited this week that Harris muddied her early message that Trump was a "stooge of corporate interests" by elevating billionaire businessman Mark Cuban as one of her top surrogates.
Whether Democratic leaders including Harrison will listen to those concerns from Biden's inner circle remains to be seen, but he expressed hostility when the message came from Sanders.
"There are a lot of post-election takes and this one ain't a good one," said Harrison.
Journalist Mitchell Northam noted that the Democratic Party has studiously ignored and expressed hostility toward Sanders' call for centering economic justice and cutting ties with Wall Street since the 2016 election, when the senator ran for president as a Democrat.
Sanders' message this week got an unlikely boost from conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks, who in 2020 dismissed the veteran, consistently popular senator as "useless" and "marginal."
"I like it when Democratic candidates run to the center," wrote Brooks. "But I have to confess that Harris did that pretty effectively and it didn't work. Maybe the Democrats have to embrace a Bernie Sanders-style disruption—something that will make people like me feel uncomfortable."
Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch applauded Brooks' "striking moment of self-awareness."
Progressive Democratic strategist Waleed Shahid expressed hope that Democratic leaders such as Harrison will do the same.
"Typically, after a major electoral defeat," he said, "party leaders step aside to create opportunities for fresh perspectives and voices that haven't yet had a chance to lead."
After U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders offered his perspective on why Vice President Kamala Harris lost both the popular vote and Electoral College to President-elect Donald Trump in Tuesday's election—repeating his consistent warning that the Democratic Party must center economic justice—top official Jaime Harrison signaled once again that the party is unlikely to hear Sanders' call.
Harrison, the chair of the Democratic National Committee and a former lobbyist for clients including Bank of America and BP, called Sanders' statement "straight up BS" and touted pro-worker policies embraced by the Biden-Harris administration, suggesting that the party has sufficiently worked for economic justice—and appearing to ignore all evidence that working-class voters gravitated toward Trump and the Republican Party.
"[President Joe] Biden was the most-pro worker president of my lifetime—saved union pensions, created millions of good-paying jobs, and even marched in a picket line," said Harrison.
Biden has been praised by progressives and labor unions for establishing pro-worker rules on overtime pay and noncompete agreements, urging Amazon workers in Alabama to unionize, presiding over a National Labor Relations Board that investigated numerous unfair labor practices by large corporations and sided with workers, and becoming the first U.S. president to walk on a picket line with striking workers.
He also worked closely with Sanders on one of his signature pieces of legislation, the Build Back Better Act, which would have invested in expanded child tax credits, public education, and free community college, among other provisions—but the bill was torpedoed by right-wing U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.), then a Democrat, and the Republican Party.
In his statement on Thursday, Sanders said "it should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working-class people would find that the working class has abandoned them."
He asked whether the "well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party" would "learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign?"
"Probably not," he added.
While Harris included in her platform plans to end price-gouging in the food industry, expand the child tax credit, and extend Medicare coverage to home healthcare, dental, and vision care, she alarmed progressive advocates by proposing a smaller capital gains tax for wealthy Americans.
As Common Dreamsreported on Thursday, Biden advisers have also posited this week that Harris muddied her early message that Trump was a "stooge of corporate interests" by elevating billionaire businessman Mark Cuban as one of her top surrogates.
Whether Democratic leaders including Harrison will listen to those concerns from Biden's inner circle remains to be seen, but he expressed hostility when the message came from Sanders.
"There are a lot of post-election takes and this one ain't a good one," said Harrison.
Journalist Mitchell Northam noted that the Democratic Party has studiously ignored and expressed hostility toward Sanders' call for centering economic justice and cutting ties with Wall Street since the 2016 election, when the senator ran for president as a Democrat.
Sanders' message this week got an unlikely boost from conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks, who in 2020 dismissed the veteran, consistently popular senator as "useless" and "marginal."
"I like it when Democratic candidates run to the center," wrote Brooks. "But I have to confess that Harris did that pretty effectively and it didn't work. Maybe the Democrats have to embrace a Bernie Sanders-style disruption—something that will make people like me feel uncomfortable."
Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch applauded Brooks' "striking moment of self-awareness."
Progressive Democratic strategist Waleed Shahid expressed hope that Democratic leaders such as Harrison will do the same.
"Typically, after a major electoral defeat," he said, "party leaders step aside to create opportunities for fresh perspectives and voices that haven't yet had a chance to lead."
"Thank you to the hundreds of thousands of Americans across the country who are standing up and speaking out for our voting rights, fundamental freedoms, and essential services like Social Security and Medicare."
In communities large and small across the United States on Saturday, hundreds of thousands of people collectively took to the streets to make their opposition to President Donald Trump heard.
The people who took part in the organized protests ranged from very young children to the elderly and their message was scrawled on signs of all sizes and colors—many of them angry, some of them funny, but all in line with the "Hands Off" message that brought them together.
"Thank you to the hundreds of thousands of Americans across the country who are standing up and speaking out for our voting rights, fundamental freedoms, and essential services like Social Security and Medicare," said the group Stand Up America as word of the turnout poured in from across the country.
A relatively small, but representative sample of photographs from various demonstrations that took place follows.
Demonstrators gather on Boston Common, cheering and chanting slogans, during the nationwide "Hands Off!" protest against US President Donald Trump and his advisor, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, in Boston, Massachusetts on April 5, 2025. (Photo by Joseph Prezioso / AFP)
"Everyone involved in this crime against humanity, and everyone who covered it up, would face prosecution in a world that had any shred of dignity left."
A video presented to officials at the United Nations on Friday and first made public Saturday by the New York Times provides more evidence that the recent massacre of Palestinian medics in Gaza did not happen the way Israeli government claimed—the latest in a long line of deception when it comes to violence against civilians that have led to repeated accusations of war crimes.
The video, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), was found on the phone of a paramedic found in a mass grave with a bullet in his head after being killed, along with seven other medics, by Israeli forces on March 23. The eight medics, buried in the shallow grave with the bodies riddled with bullets, were: Mustafa Khafaja, Ezz El-Din Shaat, Saleh Muammar, Refaat Radwan, Muhammad Bahloul, Ashraf Abu Libda, Muhammad Al-Hila, and Raed Al-Sharif. The video reportedly belonged to Radwan. A ninth medic, identified as Asaad Al-Nasasra, who was at the scene of the massacre, which took place near the southern city of Rafah, is still missing.
The PRCS said it presented the video—which refutes the explanation of the killings offered by Israeli officials—to members of the UN Security Council on Friday.
"They were killed in their uniforms. Driving their clearly marked vehicles. Wearing their gloves. On their way to save lives," Jonathan Whittall, head of the UN's humanitarian affairs office in Palestine, said last week after the bodies were discovered. Some of the victims, according to Gaza officials, were found with handcuffs still on them and appeared to have been shot in the head, execution-style.
The Israeli military initially said its soldiers "did not randomly attack" any ambulances, but rather claimed they fired on "terrorists" who approached them in "suspicious vehicles." Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an IDF spokesperson, said the vehicles that the soldiers opened fire on were driving with their lights off and did not have clearance to be in the area. The video evidence directly contradicts the IDF's version of events.
As the Times reports:
The Times obtained the video from a senior diplomat at the United Nations who asked not to be identified to be able to share sensitive information.
The Times verified the location and timing of the video, which was taken in the southern city of Rafah early on March 23. Filmed from what appears to be the front interior of a moving vehicle, it shows a convoy of ambulances and a fire truck, clearly marked, with headlights and flashing lights turned on, driving south on a road to the north of Rafah in the early morning. The first rays of sun can be seen, and birds are chirping.
In an interview with Drop Site News published Friday, the only known paramedic to survive the attack, Munther Abed, explained that he and his colleagues "were directly and deliberately shot at" by the IDF. "The car is clearly marked with 'Palestinian Red Crescent Society 101.' The car's number was clear and the crews' uniform was clear, so why were we directly shot at? That is the question."
The video's release sparked fresh outrage and demands for accountability on Saturday.
"The IDF denied access to the site for days; they sent in diggers to cover up the massacre and intentionally lied about it," said podcast producer Hamza M. Syed in reaction to the new revelations. "The entire leadership of the Israeli army is implicated in this unconscionable war crime. And they must be prosecuted."
"Everyone involved in this crime against humanity, and everyone who covered it up, would face prosecution in a world that had any shred of dignity left," said journalist Ryan Grim of DropSite News.
"They're dismantling our country. They're looting our government. And they think we'll just watch."
In communities across the United States and also overseas, coordinated "Hands Off" protests are taking place far and wide Saturday in the largest public rebuke yet to President Donald Trump and top henchman Elon Musk's assault on the workings of the federal government and their program of economic sabotage that is sacrificing the needs of working families to authoritarianism and the greed of right-wing oligarchs.
According to the organizers' call to action:
They're dismantling our country. They’re looting our government. And they think we'll just watch.
On Saturday, April 5th, we rise up with one demand: Hands Off!
This is a nationwide mobilization to stop the most brazen power grab in modern history. Trump, Musk, and their billionaire cronies are orchestrating an all-out assault on our government, our economy, and our basic rights—enabled by Congress every step of the way. They want to strip America for parts—shuttering Social Security offices, firing essential workers, eliminating consumer protections, and gutting Medicaid—all to bankroll their billionaire tax scam.
They're handing over our tax dollars, our public services, and our democracy to the ultra-rich. If we don't fight now, there won’t be anything left to save.
More than 1,000 "Hands Off!" demonstrations—organized by a large coalition of unions, progressive advocacy groups, and pro-democracy watchdogs—first kicked off Saturday in European, followed by East Coast communities in the U.S., and were set to continue throughout the day at various times, depending on location. See here for a list of scheduled "Hands Off" events—or schedule one in your community.
"The United States has a president, not a king," said the progressive advocacy group People's Action, one of the group's involved in the actions, in an email to supporters on Saturday just as protest events kicked off in hundreds of cities and communities. "Donald Trump has, by every measure, been working to make himself a king. He has become unanswerable to the courts, Congress, and the American people."
Citing the Republican president's thirst for "power and greed," the group explained why organized pressure must be built and sustained against the administration, especially at the conclusion of a week in which the global economy was spun into disarray by Trump's tariff announcement, his attack on the rule of law continued, and the twice-elected president admitted he was "not joking" about the possibility of seeking a third term, which is barred by the constitution.
"He is destroying the economy with tariffs in order to pay for the tax cuts he wants to push through to enrich himself and his billionaire buddies," warned People's Action. "He has ordered the government to round up innocent people off of the streets and put them in detention centers without due process because they dared to speak out using their First Amendment rights. And he is not close to being done—by his own admission, he is planning to run for a third term, which the Constitution does not allow."
Live stream of Hands Off rally in Washington, D.C.:
Below are photo or video dispatches from demonstrations around the world on Saturday. Check back for updates...
United Kingdom
France
Germany
Belgium:
Massachusetts:
Maine:
Washington, D.C.:
New York:
Minnesota:
Michigan:
Ohio:
Colorado:
Pennsylvania:
North Carolina:
The protest organizers warn that what Trump and Musk are up to "is not just corruption" and "not just mismanagement," but something far more sinister.
"This is a hostile takeover," they said, but vowed to fight back. "This is the moment where we say NO. No more looting, no more stealing, no more billionaires raiding our government while working people struggle to survive."