Bernie Sanders' Lake House

Here is the lake house that Senator Bernie Sanders owns in Vermont.





According to reports this is a 4 bedroom home with 500ft of waterfront purchased in cash for $575,000.

Here is my issue with this. First of all I have zero problem whatsoever with anybody owning a home like this nor do I have a problem with anybody owning 3 homes. Especially a Senator who owns a nice home in his home state plus an apartment in DC where he spends a significant amount of time.

However....the hypocrisy here is where the problem lies. For one this doesn't look like a "camp" that he owns "like thousands of other Vermonters". How many "working class" folks can afford a half million dollar 4 bedroom lakefront cabin like this? Sure plenty of well to do folks have summer cabins, but not to this extent.

The main issue I have is the fact that the man has built his entire campaign on fighting for the working class and this Green New Deal revolution. For years I've heard from his supporters and even he himself that it's "immoral" that the wealthy can ride around in Lamborghini's while many poor in America are living in the streets. How can this position even be justified when the man literally has a 4 bedroom lakefront house as a "vacation home" that he doesn't even live in full time?

How many poor Americans could be housed here? A townhome complex or even a small apartment complex could be purchased for $575,000 and could be used to house a number of homeless Americans. How much quality food could be purchased and distributed to homeless Americans? How much clothing?

We live in a world where we face a climate crisis supposedly requiring extraordinary action such as the Green New Deal, thousands of Americans living as homeless on the streets, millions unable to afford health care. Yet the man who has spent his life fighting for these changes has a lakefront vacation home that he doesn't NEED and a net worth of around 2 million dollars....

Again I have zero issues with any American who is well enough off to own a vacation home like this, good for them. I respect consistency regardless of whether I agree with the issue or not but my biggest pet peeve is hypocrisy and this is flat out hypocrisy in every sense of the word in my book.

For those who support Senator Sanders and his beliefs my question is genuine. How is this "OK"? And where is the proverbial line drawn? If it's "immoral" for the 1% to live the way they do while we have Americans literally living on the streets then is it not also immoral for Bernie Sanders to have a 4 bedroom half a million dollar vacation house while we have Americans literally living on the streets?

I'm honestly struggling to understand how the millions of Sanders supporters who believe in his ideology would be alright with this. Does this not go directly against the ideology you hold?

 

All politicians are hypocrites and each political party is guilty of hypocrisy to some extent. Hell most people in general are hypocrites to some extent.

I understand that rarely can anyone have the luxury of voting for someone who believes everything they do 100%. We tend to vote for and support who most closely aligns with our own beliefs and for most folks there is a hierarchy of beliefs they hold that don't all hold equal weight. But there are also core values and beliefs that are red lines for most folks.

I for example am way closer to a Conservative than I am Liberal and I voted for Trump and will do so again. I like his policies and I believe the Republican vision for America going forward is orders of magnitude better than the Progressive Democrat vision going forward. But if tomorrow Trump went on twitter and said after careful consideration I have decided to invoke executive action to ban AR-15s but I'm the President and I'm important so my Secret Service will still all be equipped with them then pretty much all of his supporters would be outside having bonfires with MAGA gear tomorrow morning. Those are core values that you get no real leeway with in the Trump support camp. That or if he said he would federally legalize at will 3rd trimester abortion and require all insurance to cover it or something. Or legalize illegal immigration. Pretty much guns, abortion, and immigration are the hot topics that you get very little leeway to play with in the Trump base camps.

But the message is foggy in the Bernie Bro camp because some of the core values that I keep reading and hearing about them having seem to be in direct contradiction to Bernie Sanders the person. Bernie himself seems to be what Bernie supporters DON'T like....They like his message obviously but him and his way of life seem to be in direct contradiction to that message.

I guess the best way to explain it is as I said. Trump could never say "I'm banning guns to protect the American people but I'm the President so I'm allowing my Secret Service to have guns to protect me". MAGA nation would burn him at the stake for that (figuratively)
But Bernie can have a net worth of $2 million and a lakefront vacation camp bigger and more expensive than most folks houses and there is very little "problem" with that it seems from the Bernie supporters. In a camp with one of the core values being the unfairness of income inequality I genuinely don't understand how that's not a "problem" to them.

Am I missing something here? I actually am genuinely trying to get a better insight of the mindset of the Bernie Bro nation. I'm not one who thinks that all of Sanders supporters are entitled little kids who don't want to work in life. There are plenty of Bernie supporters who I would want to sit down and have an actual conversation with to better understand why they believe what they do.

 

I just like to be the most well rounded that I can be and better understand why folks who don't think like me think the way they do. Sanders is popular there is no denying that, and while yes a significant chunk of his fan base really are young folks who genuinely do not understand how the real world actually works he does have quite a few supporters who do understand reality and they are who I would be happy to have a discussion with.

In this extremely polarized world both sides of the aisle are sitting there locked and loaded with artillery shells ready to bombard the other trench the second they pop their heads up. With so much opinionated and agenda driven news it's difficult to sift through the fog and get to the actual truth behind anything anymore. It's hard to ask questions because any question that is asked is taken as an attack or a threat and folks go on the defensive immediately. I'm sure that many are taking this very thread as an attack in itself, or a baited question sort of deal when the reality is anything but the case.

All I know about Bernie supporters is what I read online and the limited interaction I've had with them in real life. So I don't know if the core values that I keep seeing repeated all over the news and internet and various other forums are an accurate representation of the ideology of that base or if it's embellished or something. But I know that there is at least some truth in what I know about Bernie Bros and their values and I don't really understand how the values held by Sanders supporters are in line with Bernie Sanders himself.

 

Which is perfectly fine and commendable. The man has earned his wealth fairly and honestly and from what I read a significant portion of it came from the sales of his book he wrote. It's his money that he earned he is free to do with it whatever he pleases. I'm not saying he shouldn't have $2 million and a nice lake house...I'm saying how can the man claim that one of Americas worst immoral injustices is income inequality and that the wealthy live a life of luxury while we have Americans living on the streets in poverty when he has a half a million dollar vacation home...

Isn't HE himself exactly what he is talking about? Where is the consistency and standard in the message?