Bernie Sanders: The ‘Nation’ Interview
[font size="4"color="navy"]In an exclusive post-primary sit-down, Senator Sanders speaks on Our Revolution, Donald Trump, and what he really thinks about Hillary Clinton.
By Katrina vanden Heuvel and John Nichols[/font]
Excerpts:
Bernie Sanders is still campaigning for the political revolution. He’s protesting with Native Americans against the Dakota Access pipeline, championing the Working Families Party, and hitting the trail for antimonopoly congressional candidate Zephyr Teachout. Sanders continues to draw big crowds and media attention after a presidential run that won more than 12 million votes and injected genuine economic populism into the debate.
But he isn’t satisfied. We sat down with Sanders in mid-September, just as he was putting the finishing touches on a book about his campaign that will be published after the election. The Vermont senator was in rare form, ripping into the media for its role in diminishing the political discourse, calling for the reform of the Democratic Party, and celebrating the fact that a new generation considers democratic socialism a viable political option. Hillary Clinton? They’ve got differences, but he’s for her. Donald Trump? Don’t get him started…
The Nation: You were clearly frustrated by the media’s coverage of the campaign.
Sanders: What you realize is that the media focus on the gossip of the campaign, rather than the issues affecting the American people. Their coverage became about Bernie Sanders and his campaign, not about the needs of the American people and what we were proposing to address those needs. That was very distressing.
The way we overcame that, to the degree that we did, was through social media. One of the reasons I think we did so well among younger people is that most younger people now do not watch the evening news; they don’t read The Washington Post. And we did, I think, a very good job in terms of communicating directly with many millions of younger people directly through social media.
I think that what we need to do—and you’re already doing it, so I’m not lecturing you—is to integrate our ideas into the political movement so that it’s not just a magazine talking to people, or Bernie Sanders talking to people. Our ideas need to become part of everyday discussion. What we have got to do—especially with younger people, especially with people not heavily involved in the political process—is to make sure that every morning, afternoon, and evening, they are seeing the presentation of issues that are relevant to their lives.
https://www.thenation.com/article/bernie-sanders-thenation-interview/
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