Bernie Sanders Sees A Democratic Party That Looks More Like Him Than Ever

[Donkees]

BY KARA VOGHT

NOVEMBER 14, 2022

Sanders joined Rolling Stone to discuss election outcomes, the state of the party, and what he hopes Democrats will focus on as they retain control of the Senate.


Your chief concern heading into the midterm elections was that Democrats weren’t doing enough to talk about the economy — about the dangers Republicans posed to economic well-being and the agenda that Democrats should champion going forward. Do you feel like the party came around to stronger economic messaging in the final days of the campaign?

It’s hard to deny that in the last few weeks, from the president on down, more and more discussion about the economy, more and more discussion about Republican efforts to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. And I’ll tell you, I think that had a very strong impact.

I think it’s fair to say — a lot of great campaigns out there, great people — but the marquee race was Pennsylvania. I know his stroke kind of distorted the whole campaign and changed focus onto his health, but there’s no candidate who ran who was more strongly identified with the working class of Pennsylvania than John Fetterman. And he ended up winning — despite his stroke, which raised so many questions — a very strong victory. I think, frankly, if he had not had that stroke and continued along after he won the primary, I would not have been surprised if he won by double digits. I don’t know if you listened to his victory speech on Election Night. He said, ‘I tried to get to every county in the state. I know, we didn’t turn every county blue, but I wanted to talk to working class people.’ And I think in that sense, he really hit a nerve that I hope we can all learn from.

So look, the issue of abortion, enormously important. Democrats appropriately took on an extreme right-wing Supreme Court. The issue of Trump’s threats to democracy — enormously important. We have to stand up for democracy and I think that was a very, very important factor in this election. But I think — when you are seeing working people falling further and further behind massive income and wealth inequality, massive homelessness, people can’t afford their rent, people can’t afford health care — it would be absurd to ignore the economy.

During your run for president in 2016 and 2020, you argued that young people would eventually come out and support this kind of agenda — an agenda that focuses on working people, that speaks with authority about climate change, for example. I’m wondering if you’re feeling validated in that work from where you’re sitting right now.

Now, none of these things are exact science, but according to a number of exit polls, I’m just reading this right here, young people in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and Arizona supported Democrats by over 70 percent in those states. So the support among young people for Democrats was very high. Turnout was good, not as high as I would like. During my campaign blitz we worked with NextGen America, a political organization focused on youth voter engagement. The reason for its existence is to get more young people voting and involved in the political process. So yeah, I think we did a good job on that.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/bernie-sanders-democratic-party-looks-like-him-1234630314/

[Autumn]

1. Not yet enough. But we are getting there.

[comradebillyboy]

2. So did Bernie ever register as a Democrat?

I surely don't want a Democratic party that looks like Bernie Sanders.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

3. I was wondering the same thing