Probably because they inherited a prosperous society and handed us over this pile of crap. They have been abysmal stewards of the tremendous gifts they are given, and are totally unapologetic about it.
I swear to God if I hear another story about how some dimwit from the 60's worked part time to pay their college tuition I'm going to pop. Maybe it's because I keep getting asked by clueless Boomers why I'm not having kids while my wife and I are paying 1/3 of our income aggressively towards student debt. If nothing bad happens, we might finally be debt free in our 40's. Just in time for infertility to kick in.
Yes, as a late Gen Xer, I know the feeling. "You should never take on debt to go to school. Also, Have you considered becoming a Doctor/Teacher/engineer/etc.?" Even back in the mid 90s, the parents at the Private school I managed to attend fretted about the "high number" of graduates attending public university. The teachers explained that it was always the same group - the kids from working/middle class families, who absolutely had to take cost into account.
He had four years to address his lack of support among black Democrats, and has done next to zero to do so. He seems to be convinced that since on the whole black Democrats like his policies more that should be the end of it. It isn't. The relationship black Democrats have with the party is, especially in the south, something it appears Sanders still doesn't get.
I keep telling y'all, black people lean more conservative than white Americans do, and this shouldn't surprise anyone. What they aren't, however, are reactionary racists who want to drain their wealth and give it to white people (and to be clear, that's the
actual history of wealth transfer in the US, and what the GOP keeps serving up), which is what the GOP continues to propose. And frankly, many of them don't particularly trust white people to turn out and vote for Sanders, much less a Congress that will support any part of his platform. Hell, last presidential election most white voters went with the money-laundering, white supremacist scam artist whose words straight up sounded like he wanted to see a lynching, so you might understand why they aren't so trusting.
Older black voters, in particular, are *very* strategic with their vote - especially since it's often a choice between the guy that promises to lock up your kids, and the guy that promises to let police shoot them with high-powered rifles when they were just walking down the street. Also, some folks are really antisemitic, but that's true of most groups, and they'd usually sit elections out anyway. That's why that fake LBJ quote about how the CRA would "have those ******* voting democrat for the next 200 years" amused me. I just think, well, even if it were true, he still passed Civil Rights, Voting Rights, and Fair Housing.
I'd assumed he'd addressed this in some meaningful way, but it appears I was dead wrong. There are going to be a lot of Sanders supporters, mostly white, saying either directly or by vague implication that it is the fault of the black vote that Bernie lost, and not the fault of Bernie for not speaking to their concerns.
Sanders is the only guy that would go to a town like Flint, and sit in front of a nearly all-white audience talking to Michael Moore and Cornel West (who has seen his popularity really decline due to his public fued with Obama, and any black person that supported him, over an Inauguration ticket). The Jesse Jackson endorsement was too little too late, and the man managed to avoid any discussion with the CBC *and* skipped the Selma anniversary.
