Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont who gave Hillary Clinton a run for her money in the 2016 Democratic primary, sounded off on the Democrats' 15 years of "failure" Wednesday night at an event in Mississippi.
“The business model for the Democratic Party for the last fifteen years or so has been a failure," Sanders said, when asked how he was able to attract so many Millennials to his campaign.
Judging by their hoots and hollers, the audience agreed.Sanders asked his audience to ignore the White House successes the Democrats had in 2008 and 2012, because Obama was a uniquely "extraordinary candidate" and "brilliant man." Obama's wins aside, the reality, Sanders noted, is that over the last 10 years Democrats have lost about 1,000 seats in state legislatures all across the country.
It's an especially bleak outlook in the South, where in states like Mississippi, the government, legislature, and senators are all Republicans. Sanders condemned the Republican agenda, which he says benefits "the billionaire class and is at war with working people," but he saved most of his ire for Democrats.
They need to show their faces in red states, he offered as a solution.
"So one of the things we have got to do, as I mentioned earlier, is make sure that the Democrats—you don’t win elections unless you show up. It’s not just in Mississippi, although we’ve seen lately Democrats beginning to show up in Alabama. But it’s also showing up in Kansas and that is what is beginning to happen. So what we are doing is trying against a whole lot of opposition. You know, the establishment doesn’t go quietly into the twilight. But we are trying to open the doors of the Democratic Party to young people, to the millennials.”
Indeed, sometimes just making an appearance goes far with voters. Many political pundits who analyzed Hillary Clinton's defeat in the 2016 election suggest that her deciding to ignore critical states like Wisconsin gravely hurt her chances.
(H/T America Rising)