[rad-green] Sanders: Trump's Racist Demagoguery Only Works Because Too Many Americans Feel Establishment Has 'Failed Them'

*https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/17/trumps-racist-demagoguery-only-works-says-sanders-because-too-many-americans-feel
<https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/17/trumps-racist-demagoguery-only-works-says-sanders-because-too-many-americans-feel>Common
Dreams          January 17, 2020Trump's Racist Demagoguery Only Works, Says
Sanders, Because Too Many Americans Feel Establishment Has 'Failed
Them'"Bernie Sanders teaches Demagoguery and Fascism 101 to a very
skeptical New York Times editorial board."by Julia Conley, staff writer*

*Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate,
pumps his fist in the air toward supporters as he arrives to speak during a
campaign rally at Civic Center Park on September 9, 2019 in Denver. (Photo:
Helen H. Richardson/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images)*

In an interview with the *New York Times* for the newspaper's 2020
Democratic presidential candidate endorsement, Sen. Bernie Sanders spoke
about how President Donald Trump has weaponized racism to appeal to many
Americans who sense that the political and media establishments have
abandoned them in 2016 to win support.

After Sanders spoke at length
<https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/13/opinion/bernie-sanders-nytimes-interview.html>
about
Trump's efforts to "divide the American people up" and "demonize"
undocumented immigrants, *Times* editorial board member Brent Staples asked
Sanders why he thinks the president has the support of more than 40% of the
public and questioned the senator's assertion that political and economic
inequality—not just Trump—must be defeated.

"What about [divisiveness] is that Trump is a symptom of a widespread
problem?" asked Staples. "I mean, how do you address that? The problem
exists whether Trump is president or not is what I'm saying."

"How did Trump become president?" Sanders said. "I think it speaks to
something that I talk about a lot and that is the fact that...tens and tens
of millions of Americans feel that the political establishment, Republican
and Democrat, have failed them. Maybe the *New York Times* has failed them,
too."

Watch:

https://twitter.com/nytopinion/status/1217579480652357632
<https://twitter.com/nytopinion/status/1217579480652357632?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1217579480652357632&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2F2020%2F01%2F17%2Ftrumps-racist-demagoguery-only-works-says-sanders-because-too-many-americans-feel>
[image: image.png]

In a video the *Times* released containing an abridged version of the
exchange, Sanders describes how Trump exploited the state of despair many
Americans have fallen into over recent decades to convince voters that
undocumented immigrants were to blame for unemployment, drug addiction, and
economic struggles in many U.S. communities.

"When that condition arises, whether it was the 1930s in Germany, then
people are susceptible to the blame game," said Sanders. "To say that it is
the undocumented people in this country who are the cause of all of our
problems, and if we just throw 10 million people out of the country, you're
going to have a good job, and you're going to have good health care, and
you have good education, that's all we got to do... Trump didn't invent
demagoguery. It's an age-old weapon used by demagogues... And you take the
despair and the anger and the frustration that people are feeling and you
say, 'That's the cause of your problem.'"

As *Common Dreams* has reported, life expectancy
<https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/09/09/poverty-america-literal-death-sentence-says-sanders-following-devastating-gao-report>
in
the U.S. is shorter for people who are not wealthy. Young adults
<https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/12/12/interpreted-young-progressives-abject-contempt-buttigieg-says-he-was-also-big-fan>
today
are less likely than their parents' generation to afford home ownership,
and nearly 80% percent of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck
<https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/08/25/time-redistribute-wealth-1-thriving-while-78-living-paycheck-paycheck>
without
the ability to save up for an emergency.

On social media, some observers noted, despite those statistics, the
*Times* editorial
board appeared incredulous at Sanders's explanation.

"Bernie Sanders teaches Demagoguery and Fascism 101 to a very skeptical *New
York Times *editorial board," wrote Columbia University neuroscience
professor Ken Miller. "The looks of disdain as Bernie simply and lucidly
explains are priceless."

Others praised Sanders's answer as "thoughtful" and "courageous," and
implored voters to consider Sanders's message of solidarity to counter
Trump's divisiveness.

Sanders's full comments on offering voters an alternative to Trump and the
political establishment were left out of the *Times*'s video:

Now, I think, you raised the question, let me take it a step further. You
haven't asked me, I suppose it's somewhere on your list, why I think I'm
the strongest candidate to beat Trump... And that is that there is a
hard-core support for Trump, which I'm not going to be able to get through.
You're right. It is racist. It is sexist. I run into that. It's hard to
believe the attitude toward women in some parts of the country. You really
would have a hard time to believe it. We're back into the 18th century in
some these places. It is homophobic. It is anti-immigrant. Do I think I'm
going to win those people over? Nah, no way. But do I think we can get a
sliver? I can't tell you how much, 3%, 5%, 8%, of people who voted for
Trump because he said, "I am a different type of Republican. I'm not going
to cut Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security. I'm going to have trade
policies that work for workers. We're not going to be shutting down plants
in America."

"Do I think we can win some of those people? Yeah, I do," Sanders added.
"And I think we're going to win because we are going to run a campaign of
energy and excitement, which speaks to truths in people's lives, which the
political establishment does not often talk about."

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