Bernie Sanders stood his ground against Chris Matthews assault
Bernie Sanders went mano a mano with Chris Matthews and he did not allow Matthews’ plutocratic defeatist message to take hold. It was beautiful. The exchange snippets in the clip in this post shows Bernie Sanders not only standing his ground but breaking the false narrative of a necessarily impotent middle-class.
In one exchange Matthews assumes that the Senate will remain in the hands of Mitch McConnell. Sanders approaches McConnell with his plans.
“Mitch McConnell looks at you the way he looks at President Obama and says forget about it,” Matthews asked.
“And you know what I say,” replied Sanders. “Hey Mitch, take a look out the window. There are a million people out there who don’t want to be in debt for half of their life for the crime of going to college. And if you want to antagonize those people and lose your job, Mitch. If you don’t want to lose your job you better start listening to what we have to say. That’s the point. That’s how change takes place.”
In effect Bernie Sanders attempted to remind Matthews it is not about the politicians. It is about what the people are willing to force politicians to do. After-all it is still one person one vote. There are a lot more people within the masses than there are within the plutocracy. The problem is that people feel powerless. Sanders is attempting to build a movement where people feel empowered to go out there and not ask for change, but force change.
Matthews continued screaming about needing sixty senators. He continued indirectly telling Americans their desires really do not matter. Sanders reminded Matthews about movements in this country that seemed impossible but that when people finally rose up change occurred. Sanders is attempting to will this moment.
Sanders scolded Matthews for the concern that is shown when the wealthy is asked to hold up their end of the bargain while no concern was ever shown when the massive wealth transfer occurred and is occurring from the poor and the middle-class to the wealthy.
Bernie Sanders had one of the best responses to Matthews defeatist statements.
“You and I look at the world differently,” said Bernie Sanders. “You look at it inside the beltway. I am not an inside the beltway guy. I am an outside the beltway guy.”
Matthews reminded Sanders that the people who vote on taxes are inside the beltway. Sanders response?
“And those people are gonna vote the right way when millions of people demand that they vote the right way, Sanders said. “On this issue I have no doubt that as President of the United States I can rally young people and their parents to say that if Germany does it, Scandinavia does it, countries around the world do it, and yes we bailed out Wall Street, it is Wall Street’s time to help the middle-class.”
It is time for Americans to assert their worth.