2016 Postmortem

imagine2015

(2,054 posts) Fri May 27, 2016, 07:58 PM May 2016

Sanders Has Always Wanted to Debate Trump—or Any Other Representative of the ‘Billionaire Class’

Sanders Has Always Wanted to Debate Trump—or Any Other Representative of the ‘Billionaire Class’
by John Nichols
May 27, 2016

Bernie Sanders relishes ripping on Donald Trump, describing the billionaire as “someone who must never become president of this country.”

No surprise there.

Sanders has run his entire 2016 presidential campaign in opposition to plutocracy, oligarchy, and billionaire-dominated politics—proudly declaring that his run is paid for by small donors and “not the billionaires.” In fact, Sanders has run his entire political career in opposition to plutocracy, oligarchy, and billionaire-dominated politics. He has, as well, spent decades critiquing a media system that pays more attention to “lifestyles of the rich and famous” celebrity than the real-world issues facing working-class Americans. That’s made Trump, a billionaire byproduct of the media’s cult of celebrity, a preferred target for the senator, who rips the Republican’s rhetoric as “shameful” and complains that “every day he comes up with another stupid remark, absurd remarks.”

That makes sense for the senator, as his campaign could only benefit from a clash with Trump—drawing attention to an uphill run and helping Sanders make a case that he is best prepared to battle the Republican.

It makes less sense for Trump, as Sanders would give the billionaire no quarter. Ultimately, that could end up helping Clinton, the Democrat Trump expects to be running against in November.

Sanders has always relished debating Republicans to “expose them for their subservience to the billionaire class.”

For Sanders, of course, this is about more than Trump.

He has always been excited by the prospect of one-on-one debates with Republicans.

A year ago, when Sanders spoke to The Nation about the campaign he had just launched, he was pushing for more Democratic debates. But he was also talking about broader debates. Asked if he would as a Democratic contender be willing to engage in a one-on-one debate with a Republican contender, he answered, “Of course I would.”

“I would like as many debates as possible, and I would also like to break new ground and have debates with Republicans and Democrats. I think that will be very positive for the American people in that we’ll be able to focus on issues. Let the Republicans defend why they want to give tax breaks to the billionaires and make massive cuts in Medicare. I would love to hear it,” said Sanders. “The most serious political problem facing this country is that we don’t discuss the serious issues facing this country. And the American people are becoming increasingly alienated from the political process; 63 percent of the American people didn’t vote last November. I’m looking for ways to bring them into a serious discussion about serious issues. When we do that, the Republican agenda will be exposed for the disaster it is.”

“I’m the ranking member on the Budget Committee. The Republican budget gave over $200 billion in tax breaks over a 10-year period to the wealthiest two-tenths of 1 percent—massive cuts in Medicare, massive cuts in Medicaid, massive cuts in education, threw 27 million people off their health insurance. That is the Republican budget. That is what they believe.… That’s exactly what their budget did. The Republicans get away with murder because what they do and what they want is not seen, is not understood by the American people, because it’s not talked about,” Sanders said last year. “So I think the more that we can confront Republicans about their ideology of tax breaks for the billionaires and cuts to every program that is a benefit to the American people, and can expose them for their subservience to the billionaire class—I think that wins for us every single time.”

Read the full article at:
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/05/27/sanders-has-always-wanted-debate-trump-or-any-other-representative-billionaire