Thread by @ClaireBerlinski

Next chapter, still on Bernie. The Decline of the American Middle Class.

America is growingly unequal. There are 540 billionaires and 43 Americans "living in poverty, many in extreme poverty."

"No one thinks twice anymore about the absurdity of basketball players making tens of millions of dollars a year ... while child-care workers earn minimum wage."

(That's going to be a winner for him: campaigning against basketball players.)

"When we were kids, we read about 'Banana Republics' in Latin America and other oligarchic societies that existed in countries around the world, where only a handful of families held all the wealth and power. Fellow Americans, take a look around you."

"This type of rigged and unfair economy is not what America is supposed to be about. And it's not what America used to be."

(He was a socialist back then, too.)

The next passage is all MAGA: We used to have factories that made things, and we made cars and trucks, and everyone had health insurance.

He concludes by saying, "Look, I'm not suggesting it was a Utopian time. There were also great struggles." But it was a time of enormous economic growth, and it was shared.

"That is, until powerful special interests started demanding a bigger and bigger slice of the pie."

To sum up, for those just tuning in. The American middle class is in decline.

Trump: It's China's fault. And Mexico's.
Yang: It's automation.
Bernie: It's the oligarchs.