William Jennings Bryan Lost-- Can Bernie Win A Century Later And Fighting For The Same Interests Of Everyday Americans?

"Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved."
-William Jennings Bryan

The presidential election of 1896 could have been a great game-changer. But it wasn't. The urban working class and the rural Americans looked like they were going to united behind Democrat and populist William Jennings Bryan. Rural Americans largely came to the party. The working class in the Northeast and Midwest didn't, selling out their own economic interests to the capitalists, screwing themselves and their families royally for the next 4 decades.

After Bryan won the Democratic Party nomination, the Blue Dogs of the day-- they were called Bourbon Democrats back them-- split off and started the National Democratic Party and ran conservative John Palmer, who switched parties throughout his miserable life, as a third party, likely depriving Bryan of California and Kentucky and possibly Oregon. Republican William McKinley, the candidate of Big Business beat Bryan, the candidate of the workers and farmers, 7,111,607 (51.0%) to 6,509,052 (46.7%). McKinley preached trickle down-- in the middle of a depression and high unemployment no less-- and the workers, swayed by the biggest campaign spending ever up to that point, bought it. Turnout was massive-- the biggest in American history.

It makes me sad that Bryan lost and that McKinley won but we can still absolve ourselves of this great injustice next year-- by electing the guy who said this yesterday:

Today I took people with diabetes across the border from Detroit to Canada to buy insulin-- medication they need to survive.

In the United States, a single vial of insulin costs on average $340. But in Canada, the same exact drug is just $30.

Why? Because the United States is the only major country on earth that lets drug companies charge whatever they want.

One in four people with diabetes ration their insulin because it is so expensive. That means American people die because of corporate greed.

So I took people with diabetes to a pharmacy in Windsor, Ontario-- just a 20 minute drive from Detroit-- to buy the drugs they need to survive.

While we were there, people were able to buy the same drugs at one-tenth of the cost. One family from Indiana told me in the pharmacy that they skip paying their electric bill in order to pay for their son’s insulin. They paid $1,000 today for six months of insulin. It would have cost them $10,000 in the United States.

We have to ask ourselves why this is possible. And it is because of two factors: the greed of the pharmaceutical manufacturers, and the fact that these companies buy off politicians who will protect their greed.

These lower prices are possible in Canada because that country negotiates drug prices with drug companies. They have the common sense to say that drug company profits are not more important than the lives of their citizens.

The United States must negotiate for lower drug prices, and it must allow cheaper drugs to be imported from other countries.

Our job now is to end the incredible corruption and greed in the pharmaceutical industry.

[T]ell Congress you believe the government should negotiate with drugmakers for lower prices and allow for the importation of less expensive but safe and affordable drugs from other countries.

When we are in the White House, we will take on Big Pharma and we will win.