Hey, Senator Sanders! I could have answered the question and stayed on message and I've never been a United States Senator, United States Representative, or mayor. Figuratively standing with the Vermont senator and former presidential candidate is popular podcaster Brian Taylor Cohen, who remarked (at 1:40 of the video below)
Here's what I hope we can take out of not just this interview but this political era. Americans are tired of watching our media focus on the horse race of politics instead of the implications of it. The reason that Bernie Sanders is doing this massively successful Stop Oligarchy tour is not because he wants to fuel speculation about a 2028 run because quite literally he wants to stop oligarchy. It is right there in the title and yet when given the opportunity to speak with Senator Sanders,, the fact that the media cannot shake its old habits is a testament to the fact that they're not willing to meet this moment with the urgency it deserves.
In the interview Bernie Sanders took with ABC's This Week with Occasionally George Stephanopoulos (transcript here), correspondent George Karl asked these questions before he set Sanders off:
- So what are you trying to accomplish with this tour?
- Well, I hear you telling people out there, fight back. What do you mean, though? How do these people- how do they fight back?
- I've been covering you for a long, long time. I've hear you railing against millionaires and billionaires for a long time.
- Is there anything that you think Trump has done right?
After asking Sanders for a comment about President Biden's record on immigration, Karl asked
- So, realistically, Republicans control the House. They control the White House. They control the Senate. So what, realistically, can be done?
- You said that the passage of this bill, the continuing resolution, was a "absolute failure of Democratic leadership." What are you talking about?
After days of speculation about Democratic leadership in the Senate, and even about Chuck Schumer remaining as minority leader, Karl introduced the Sanders interview by noting that more than 30,000 people appeared for the Sanders/Ocasio-Cortez rally in Denver, and the Vermont senator (legitimately) bragged to the ABC audience "and we have done a lot of big rallies. 32,000 people here is by far the largest rally I have ever done." Then the interviewer had the temerity to ask Sanders "would you like her (i.e., Ocasio-Cortez) to join you in the Senate?"
The nerve of that man!
It wasn't the most important question but as one people have been talking about, it begged to be answered. And it could have been answered with something as simple as "you'll have to ask her about her plans." A little more problematically, the Senator might have said "she'd be a very good Senator, just as Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand have been." (Admittedly, that would have been a lie about Gillibrand.)
Bernard "Bernie" Sanders is not far removed from his New York City roots. His response to an innocent question that could easily have been brushed away reveals a somewhat nasty and belligerent old white man who easily takes personal offense.
This should remind us all of the White House occupant who has been elected to the presidency twice, not the least because of his damaged character. In much smaller measure, a degree of arrogance and belligerence attracts tens of thousands to a rally, and a cantankerous old man may be what voters nationally are drawn toward in this irascible and hostile period.
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