Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., compared the Democratic establishment for demonizing his supporters in the 2016 election to how male podcasters are being vilified today.
Sanders spoke to Andrew Schulz and Akaash Singh of the “Flagrant” podcast on Monday, agreeing that the Democratic Party has robbed their constituents of their right to participate in the democratic process. After discussing how the 2016 primary nomination was stolen from Sanders for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Schulz asked, “Could we not also say, ostensibly, there hasn’t been a fair primary for the Democrats since 2008, are they not also a threat to democracy?” he asked.
“Yes,” Sanders replied.
But another key element about the 2016 election was how Sanders’ supporters, then referred to as “Bernie bros,” were condemned by the Democratic establishment and the media in 2016. Singh recalled claims that they “have a racism problem, a misogyny problem,” and asked, “do you think that’s a super PAC thing behind that?”
“That was the Democratic establishment,” Sanders replied, arguing he had a diverse grassroots base. “They were sitting there – We had a lot of young people, we had people-of-color and, you know, they create this kind of myth with the help of the corporate media and all that stuff.”
“You know it’s kind of interesting, to that note, is during this election, the podcast space which the Democrats largely avoided, they feel had some influence in the election and um they started to label us ‘the podcast bros’ and said that we were sexist, and we were racist and bigoted,” Schulz recalled. “It’s almost like it’s the exact same strategy to get you out of there.”
“Yeah,” Sanders replied, agreeing that’s what the “liberal elite” does.
The Vermont senator went on to argue that there is a clear distinction between working against “all forms of bigotry” versus engaging in “identity politics.”
“’You’re Black? You’re wonderful, you’re tremendous. You’re gay? You’re the greatest human being on Earth,’” Sanders said, criticizing the identity politics.
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Sanders argued advocates of identity politics are failing to ask the real question, “’What do you stand for?’ You’re gay? That’s fine, who cares? But what do you stand for?”
Sanders continued, “You know, is every gay person brilliant and wonderful and great? No, of course not. Everybody’s a human being. So the issue is ‘What you stand for?’ which gets you back to what we discussed earlier. Class politics, in the sense of ‘Which side are you on?’ Are you going to stand with working families? Are you going to raise the minimum wage to a living wage or not? Are you going to guarantee – fight to guarantee – healthcare to all people or not? Are you going to demand that the wealthiest people stop paying their fair share of taxes or not? Those are the issues, and no one cares what color you are, you know, what your gender is etc. etc.”
