Bernie Sanders, the feisty Vermont senator introduced as “Independent in every sense of the word” isn’t likely to change if he runs for President. And if he does run – a suggestion that brought the evening’s loudest applause during a recent appearance at the Commonwealth Club of California – it should not be dull.
Within the first several minutes of his talk Sanders had ticked off a list of reasons he might indeed be tempted to enter the presidential fray: “Income inequality, planetary challenges, growing disillusionment with the establishment, massive greed, reckless and illegal behavior on the part of Wall Street resulting in millions of people losing their jobs and homes, a corporate establishment that cares only about its own interest…
“The American middle class,” Sanders says, “has been disappearing for the last 40 years. Forty-five million Americans live in poverty. Despite the Affordable Care Act, 35 million are still uninsured. The U.S. is the only major country that does not guarantee healthcare as a right.”
Sanders deplores what he sees as a movement toward oligarchy, with a handful of very rich holding the reins of power. Within that handful are the Koch brothers. Citing their 1980s Libertarian campaign goals, Sanders lists a few expectations of what oligarchic control would bring: abolition of Medicare, Medicaid and the postal service, abandonment of all government welfare, abolition of the minimum wage…
Sanders’ rapid-fire listing of grim possibilities ahead, shared in both his prepared remarks and in the Q&A moderated by San Francisco Supervisor David Campos, had more than an occasional campaign-speech sound. “It would be a very sad state of affairs if Hillary (Rodham Clinton) ran without serious opposition,” he said. Nor does he have much enthusiasm for likely Republican candidate Jeb Bush. “There clearly is something wrong with the political system if we’re not seeing dozens and dozens of vibrant young leaders whose dad wasn’t president or whose husband wasn’t president.”
His own platform would likely have the overturning of Citizens United and movement toward publicly funded election as a primary plank, a change Sanders sees as necessary to restoring democracy to our democratic system. Sharing the top would be fixing income inequality, an injustice he terms obscene and grotesque. “Between 2013 and 2015,” he said, “the 14 wealthiest people – Gates, Kochs, Buffett – saw their wealth increase by $157 billion. Not what they’re worth; increase. That $157 billion is more wealth than is owned by the bottom 40 percent of the American people. One family, the Walton family, owns more wealth than the bottom 40 percent.” Sanders on income inequality is Sanders in a rage against injustice.
The senator also has solutions: make public colleges free, weatherize houses, invest in solar, build a national rail system. Overturn Citizens United.
“The issue is not what happens in Congress,” he says; “it’s what happens in the grassroots. You’re going to have to start listening to the working class, not just billionaire corporations. Mobilize young people to say ‘stop spending billions on the military, spend on education.’
“This stuff is not easy,” the possible-candidate adds. “These guys who have got it all want more.” And Sanders is quick to say that he has few friends on Wall Street, in corporate America or in the military-industrial complex. “But I have seven beautiful grandchildren,” he adds, “and I’ll be damned if they’re not going to live in a country we can be proud of.”
Which sounds a little like he may run for President.