In a scathing overview of how Brexit demonstrates the failures of the global economy, presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders pens an op-ed for the New York Times

“Surprise, surprise. Workers in Britain, many of whom have seen a decline in their standard of living while the very rich in their country have become much richer, have turned their backs on the European Union and a globalized economy that is failing them and their children.” — Bernie Sanders, New York Times

In his usual onslaught of alarming statistical data, the U.S. Senator from Vermont, and presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders tells the DNC to focus on the real issue that matters above all else: economic inequality. While many critics of Brexit are focused on the xenophobic aspect of the historic vote last Friday, they may fail to see how economic inequality activists like him would take a stance against the EU at this time, but they would basically be blind to say so.

Senator Bernie Sanders isn’t supporting neo-nationalism. He’s simply using Brexit as the most current example of how difficult life has become for ordinary people throughout the world.

He points to how, in America, nearly 60,000 factories have shut down over the past 15 years or so, disintegrating more than 4.8 million factory jobs along with it, attributing this disasterous change to free-trade agreements that have repeatedly encouraged corporations to move their operations to the cheapest bidder overseas. He accurately explains how the average male worker in the United States today actually makes $726 less than he did in 1973, and points out the even worse downgraded salary for females who make $1,154 less than they did in 2007.

In another article today, we examined how the Brexit could effect America, but Bernie really sums it up by saying,

That increasingly globalized economy, established and maintained by the world’s economic elite, is failing people everywhere. Incredibly, the wealthiest 62 people on this planet own as much wealth as the bottom half of the world’s population — around 3.6 billion people. The top 1 percent now owns more wealth than the whole of the bottom 99 percent. The very, very rich enjoy unimaginable luxury while billions of people endure abject poverty, unemployment, and inadequate health care, education, housing and drinking water.

Could this rejection of the current form of the global economy happen in the United States? You bet it could.

Read the entire New York Times piece here.