Wal-Mart CEO
The CEO of Wal-Mart becomes a symbol of the inherent inequality of corporations fighting against raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. His yearly salary works out to roughly $9,000 an hour for someone working 40 hours a week. That means the work he does per hour would be worth 600 times that of one single hourly wage earner for Wal-Mart. If that worker was earning $15 an hour. Which, of course, no minimum wage worker earns at Wal-Mart.
Iraq War Vote
Sanders repeats the fact he voted against the authorization to invade Iraq while Hillary Clinton cast her vote in favor of doing so. This vote against the war becomes a symbolic assertion establishing his foreign policy credentials as authenticating what it means to truly be fiscally conservative since invasion turned out to be not just a foreign policy disaster, but one of the biggest wastes of taxpayer dollars in U.S. history.
Brooklyn Dodgers
The decision by its team owner to move the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles for purely personal economic gain becomes a symbol of corporate philosophy. The owner gave no thought to how it was the community of Brooklyn that made him money by loyally supporting the team despite infamously winning the World Series just once in 54 years nor any thought to the emotional toll (much less the financial hit) moving the team would take on that community. The Dodgers become a symbol of the myth of property ownership which denies the impact of its consumers and employees in sustaining its success.
Gambling Casino
Wall Street is characterized several times throughout the book as being far less a respectable place where business is conducted with serious purpose based on scientific principles of risk versus toleration and more often as a casino where people are simply pumping money into machines, yanking down the arms, and praying to see nothing but cherries. Wall Street’s characterization as a symbolic casino is engendered by the literal reality of pervasive speculation of gamblers using other people’s money to increase their own incomes with no fears of retribution or accountability.
Lack of Imagination
Sanders identifies the lack of imagination as the symbolic center of America’s current political divide. Too many people are too willing to listen to what others say which confirms the bias that has already been constructed as a result of listening only to what representatives of one side of an issue have said. The lack of curiosity about the possibility of there being another perspective on an issue has fueled this systemic breakdown so that the status quo is one which fails even to imagine the possibility of positive change and progressive reform.
