Bernie Sanders appeared to sum up Donald Trump's campaign tactics in a video decades before the now-president-elect won the 2024 election. The Vermont senator, then 61, spoke to high school students about the value of public service, the political process, and his experiences as an elected official as part of a C-SPAN and Comcast project to encourage dialogue between students and national leaders. He described how Republicans would "split people up instead of working together." "You split people up, and then they end up if you're a middle-class person voting against your own interests and the rich go laughing all the way to the bank," he told the students.
I turned 18 before the general election in 2016 but I regrettably didn’t vote. A couple years later I became a big Bernie supporter and voted for him in 2020. He’s the only genuine politician I can think of that makes sense.
I will never stop wondering where we’d be if Bernie won the nomination/presidency in 2016. He was the man for the moment, for Covid, and his policies would have directly addressed the inaction that has led to workers leaving the Dems. What firebrand progressive would be replacing him now?
I’d like to think that timeline exists somewhere. But anyways… back to reality.