John Nichols interviews Bernie

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/bernie-sanders-2020-convention/

Bernie Sanders will address the Democratic National Convention this week, not as the nominee of the party he had hoped to lead against Donald Trump but as a supporter of the Democratic ticket of former vice president Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris. Since Sanders and Biden stopped competing for the nomination, Sanders has worked with Biden to unify the party. He will continue to do so this fall.

But the senator from Vermont still sees himself as an outsider, who is battling against status quo politics and the caution of contemporary Democrats who lack the bold vision that Franklin Delano Roosevelt outlined in his 1944 “Economic Bill of Rights.” This is a subject Sanders and I began to explore last year when I interviewed for my new book, The Fight for the Soul of the Democratic Party (Verso). We returned to it last week when the senator and I discussed whether Covid-19, mass unemployment, and the demand for racial justice might create an opening for the bolder politics he advocates. Sanders offered a vision for the party that is rooted in its history and focused on its future—and gave a glimpse of what he’ll talk about at the convention.

JN: You’ve made it clear that you believe electing Joe Biden is a big deal because of the necessity to beat Donald Trump, But it’s also fair to say that you have developed a relationship with Joe Biden where you think you can talk to this guy and—even if you do not always agree on everything—to work with him on at least some issues.

BS: Well, number one, the first absolute necessity is to defeat Donald Trump. Trump is the most dangerous president in American history. Trump is an authoritarian who is trying to undermine American democracy. Trump is a pathological liar. Trump does not understand or believe in the Constitution of the United States or the separation of powers. He does not respect Congress. He is a racist, a sexist, a homophobe, a xenophobe, and a religious bigot. For all those reasons and more, Trump must be defeated.

My view is that, after we elect Biden, what we’re going to do is everything that we possibly can to move his administration in a progressive direction. Biden has told me, and I would not say it if he hadn’t made the same statement publicly, that he intends to be the most progressive president since FDR. That’s a noble ambition, and our job is to hold him to that goal. I think millions of people are prepared to do that.

JN: There’s a story, told with many variations, that FDR, when confronted by activists making demands for economic and social and racial justice, would say: “Go out and make me do it.”

BS: Right.

JN: So the hope is that a good Democratic president, a wise Democratic president, understands this dynamic of wanting to have pressure for a more progressive agenda, or at least to have the activism that makes demands, that opens things up. That makes it easier for a president to move into a more progressive space.

BS: Right! Look, on issue after issue, the American people are supporting the progressive agenda while the corporate elite is vigorously opposed to that agenda. Our job is to make the Biden administration understand that it makes a lot more sense to be supportive of what the American people want rather than what the moneyed interests want.

That’s what our task will be the day after the election. Right now, obviously, the most important task is to elect Biden. I think it’s going to be difficult. I know a lot of people are assuming, “Oh, the polls look so good, Biden’s going to win–no problem.” I don’t believe that for a second.

I think this is going to be a very tough election for a whole lot of reasons. I worry very much about what happens on Election Day and the counting of ballots, how mail-in ballots are counted, whether people in fact can even cast those ballots, whether the Postal Service is going to be sabotaged, etc.

What I am pledged to do in the next three months is everything I can to see that Biden is elected; and the day after that election, when he wins, to make sure that we move him in a progressive direction.

https://www.salon.com/2020/08/17/as-a-strange-dnc-kicks-off-are-bernie-sanders-and-the-squad-being-left-out/

Bernie Sanders opens the week with his keynote address on Monday evening, dubbed “We the People” night by the DNC. Sanders will then hold a virtual town hall, apart from the convention, which will feature Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., fresh off her easy primary victory, along with progressive organizers and Joe Biden’s director of progressive outreach. Sanders delegates also plan to hold a “shadow convention” outside the DNC.

Leading Sanders surrogates Rep. Ro Khanna of California and Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan have already announced they plan to vote no on the DNC’s platform — which does not include either support for Medicare for All or marijuana legalization, two progressive policies that garner majority support with Democratic voters. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York is the only Sanders supporter, aside from the former candidate, who gets a speaking slot this week even though about one-fourth of this year’s delegates are Sanders supporters. She only gets one minute.

That’s it. That’s the outreach. Former Ohio governor John Kasich, a Republican, will receive a bigger platform at the Democratic convention — and that just about sums up the state of the party less than three months ahead of the election. The triumphant center claims it is extending a hand to progressives and NeverTrump Republicans but is leaning hard in onl one of those directions.

Yes, these are serious times and the threat of a second Trump term should be all the persuasion necessary this go-round for both groups to support Biden. But Democrats are clearly not capitalizing on their nearly all-virtual convention to reach key groups it failed to reach last time. “The four-day event includes only three Latinx headliners and entirely leaves off Muslim Americans, each making up a complex, diverse group of individuals who Biden is hoping to turn out in record numbers,” progressive activists pointed out to the Daily Beast. The convention is supposed to be a unifying event for the party where Democrats from all factions come together but this year’s DNC lineup doesn’t reflect the political complexities of the moment, as Salon’s Andrew O’Hehir recently took note:

Ever since Biden swept to victory on Super Tuesday and the subsequent primaries, Democratic primary voters in various places have delivered a different and more complicated message. Three more longtime incumbent members of Congress have been primaried out by more progressive opponents this year, including a committee chairman, Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, and the scion of a Black political dynasty in St. Louis, Rep. William Lacy Clay of Missouri.

Another committee chair, Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York, survived by an eyelash after a painfully slow six-week vote count. Two other New York progressives — City Councilman Ritchie Torres in the heavily Latino South Bronx, and former Justice Department lawyer Mondaire Jones in the largely-white northern suburbs — defeated establishment-supported Democrats for open House seats, and will become the first two openly gay Black members of Congress. Similar conflicts lie ahead: Rep. Richard Neal of Massachusetts, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee and grateful recipient of Big Pharma and financial industry dollars on a grand scale, faces an intriguing challenge from Alex Morse, openly gay 31-year-old mayor of the working-class city of Holyoke.

https://apnews.com/b9e26befa1f3e0bec61426163893faed

Sanders insisted that the top priority for progressives is electing Biden. But, once that’s accomplished, “we have got to do everything we can to mobilize people to fight for an agenda that works for working families,” which may not mean always lining up with the new administration.

Sanders used his vast contact list to send 350,000 texts and raise more than $730,000 for like-minded congressional and local candidates who competed in Aug. 4 primaries around the country. That included more than $100,000 for Cori Bush, a racial justice activist who unseated longtime Missouri Democratic Rep. William Lacy Clay, who was endorsed by Harris.

In March, Sanders-endorsed Marie Newman, who topped moderate Democratic Rep. Dan Lipinski in Illinois.

Those close to Sanders also credit him with convincing activists and others who might not have run for office to become candidates, effectively “lowering the drawbridge” that had barred access to electoral politics for many.

One example is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who will help nominate Sanders at the convention and is widely seen as his successor in leading progressives. The New York congresswoman easily won her primary and further demonstrated her power by helping former middle school principal Jamaal Bowman take out long-serving Rep. Eliot Engel in New York’s primary.

Similarly, Ocasio-Cortez’s close allies, and proud fellow members of “The Squad,” Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, both bested primary challenges from more centrist Democrats. Their message in Congress often overlaps with protests against institutional racism that spread around the country in the wake of George Floyd’s death in police custody.

“You can’t really have one without the other,” Lorella Praeli, president of Community Change Action, which works to empower low-income people, especially those of color, said of progressive values and the push for racial and social justice.

“I just think that we’re kidding ourselves if we don’t confront a hard truth,” Praeli said. “We can try to do it by coming up with and delivering a Band-Aid solution, or we can say we have a once-in-a- generation opportunity right now to really get at the root of the problem.”

That’s a part of a larger fight that could dominate future presidential races Sanders won’t run in. He said it is “very unlikely” that he’s a 2024 presidential candidate, but also refused to speculate on who might succeed him as the movement’s next White House hopeful.

“They want to know who’s running in 2092,” he joked. “In 2092, there was a baby that was born yesterday that announced her candidacy.”

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DNC trying to SILENCE AOC with 60 second speaking slot at Democratic National Convention