Bernie Sanders answers were perfect
Bernie Sanders appeared on Face The Nation where he responded to Bill Clinton‘s statements and the statements by Paul Krugman and Jonathan Chait that effectively claimed he was angry and that his policies were pie-in-the-sky.
John Dickerson: Here is how Bill Clinton characterized your campaign. He said — quote — “This other guy’s madder than she is,” referring to his wife, “and that feels authentic. And, besides, his slogans are easier to say.” Your reaction.
Bernie Sanders: Well, I am angry. And the American people are angry, John. People are angry because they don’t understand why they have to work longer hours for lower wages and almost new income and wealth is going to the top 1 percent. They are angry because their kids are leaving school $40,000 or $50,000 in debt. And they’re angry because they are seeing the United States having a nation in which elderly people are trying to make it on $12,000, $13,000 a year on Social Security. People are asking why. So, there is anger. And I share that anger.
John Dickerson: What President Clinton is touching on is something that liberal writers, Jonathan Chait in “New York” magazine and Paul Krugman in “The New York Times” are — they say there’s too much idealism in your campaign. Krugman writes — quote — “Don’t let idealism veer into self- destructive self-indulgence.” What is your reaction to this idea that you’re just — that you’re offering too much here?
Bernie Sanders: I am not offering too much. You know, John, and I think that’s really an unfair criticism. To say that we should make public colleges and universities tuition- free and do what many other countries around the world are already doing, and pay for that through a tax on Wall Street speculation, that is not a radical idea. To say that we should do away with loopholes that allow corporations to put their money in the Cayman Islands, pay nothing in federal income taxes, and invest that money in rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, that is not a utopian, pie-in-the-sky idea. That’s exactly what we should do. We are the only major country on Earth that doesn’t guarantee health care to all people as a right. To say that have a Medicare- for-all single-payer system, that is what every other major country on Earth is doing, guaranteeing health care to all of their people. What has happened over the years is, we have become so conservative, we have been dominated so much by Wall Street and big money interests, that people are forgetting what we can do and what we should do. Yes, I do believe that the wealthiest people and the largest corporations should finally start paying their fair share of taxes. That’s what the American people want. That’s not utopian.
His message discipline remains focused on the reality of the poor and middle-class as well as the corruption of the establishment, Wall Street, and the corporatocracy is likely to keep his base growing. He does not allow the childish externalities to have any impact on his messaging.
And to the responses he gave? Enough said.
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