Inflation is driving Democrats to adopt Bernie Sanders’ rhetoric

Few professions capture the technocratic spirit of the Obama-era Democratic Party better than urban planning.

So it was hardly surprising that Brad Lander — who has a master’s degree in the subject and worked in nonprofit housing before entering politics — ran for New York City Council during the Obama presidency in the careful, measured language of policy wonks.

At the time, Lander’s “Issues” page described affordable housing as “the greatest challenge confronting our city” and proposed preserving affordable units, strengthening rent laws and improving mass transit. The problem was a policy challenge; the solutions were better planning and thoughtful governance.

That was then.

The Brad Lander challenging a Democratic incumbent for a U.S. House seat on Tuesday sounds like a very different politician. His current campaign’s “Issues” page starts with the header “Fight, Don’t Fold” and goes on to use the word “fight” almost three dozen times as it rails against the “MAGA Supreme Court,” “lawless Trump officials,” “Wall Street, crypto, and AIPAC,” “AI oligarchs” and billionaires, among other targets.

NYC Comptroller: Trump helped ICE turn Manhattan courthouse into an ‘abduction trap’

November 9, 2025 / 10:20

Lander isn’t an outlier, either. A growing number of Democrats have moved away from the Obama-era language of pragmatic problem-solving toward a more combative style that echoes independent Vermont senator Bernie Sanders’ attacks on the “billionaire class.”

But Sanders is only part of the story. Democrats are also responding to the political realities of the Trump era: an increasingly confrontational Republican Party, an aggressively conservative Supreme Court, the failed presidential campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris and years of stubborn inflation. Voters are frustrated, skeptical and angry.

Inflation may be the biggest factor changing the political landscape. For years, Democrats could talk about growing the economy through innovation. But voters facing higher rents, grocery bills and insurance premiums just want to know why everything is so expensive. With few easy answers on inflation, Democrats have been forced to find other ways to talk about rising costs.

The party has been inching toward this territory for a while. As president, Joe Biden went after “Big Pharma” and airlines charging surprise fees. Harris’ presidential campaign blamed higher food prices on grocery stores “price gouging” and rising housing costs on corporate investors buying up homes. Even New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, hardly a pitchfork-wielding Occupy Wall Street type, has taken to regularly talking about “corporate greed.”

But those had largely been piecemeal attacks on particularly unpopular corporate interests. The Sanders rhetorical approach that candidates like Lander are taking is much more comprehensive:

Focus on monthly bills. Avoid talking about economic indicators such as gross domestic product or the stock market and instead zero in on bills like rent, prescription drugs and college loans.
Identify a powerful villain. Target corporations, billionaires and other elites whose actions have made those bills more expensive or life more difficult in general.
Promise direct relief. Pledge to forgive student debt, cap prescription drug prices, lower childcare costs, raise the minimum wage or create Medicare for All.

That doesn’t mean Democrats have embraced all of those proposals; even Lander remains a technocrat at heart. If you peel away the rhetoric on his new “Issues” page, you’ll find a proposal for the federal government to issue investment bonds to help nonprofits defray the costs of building new affordable housing projects. That’s a wonky idea that Brad Lander the urban planner would love, but it’s listed under the Sanders-like header “Homes, Not Hate.”

The primaries so far this year haven’t provided a clear answer on which policies Democratic voters support.

Moderates and progressives in the Democratic Party continue to argue about the best approach to public policy, and the primaries so far this year haven’t provided a clear answer on which approach even their own voters favor. Given the unpopularity of Trump and the GOP right now, it’s likely that they will do well in November regardless of their exact platform.

But Lander’s evolution shows that Bernie Sanders’ biggest legacy may not be any of his policy proposals. Instead, it may be a different way of talking about the economy by promising to confront powerful interests and to lower costs. Whatever policies Democrats as a whole end up embracing, that rhetorical approach appears to be here to stay.

This is a preview of MS NOW’s Project 47 Newsletter. As President Trump continues implementing his ambitious agenda, get expert analysis on the administration’s latest actions and how others are pushing back sent straight to your inbox every Tuesday. Sign up now.

The post Inflation is driving Democrats to adopt Bernie Sanders’ rhetoric appeared first on MS NOW.