So as many of you know, Congresswoman Alexandria [inaudible] Cortez has endorsed Bernie Sanders
for president. Now, I've already said, and some of you disagree with me, I don't believe
that AOC endorsement is going to do that much for Bernie because her constituency is more
than likely already supporting Bernie. What I mean by that is if you are someone who is
of the mindset that I don't know who I'm going to support, but once AOC says who she's supporting,
I'm going to support someone.
It's not that likely that that's the position you're in. You're probably already leaning
towards, we're supporting Bernie Sanders. So I know some of you disagree with that assessment.
That's fine. It's a difference of opinion. Two beautiful thing. Okay? Something interesting
happened when Bernie Sanders and AOC were interviewed on the day of their massive rally.
I believe that this was the biggest rally for any candidate in the 2020 election cycle.
Just a massive, massive rally at which a AOC endorsed Bernie. Uh, I dunno if this was right
before or after the event, but a reporter went to AOC and sort of played the identity
politics games saying why are you a woman of color endorsing an old white guy like Bernie
Sanders who was sitting right next to AOC during this interview? And there are many
things that I want to comment on here, but first let's look at the video.
You made history with your election and you both are part of the most diverse Congress
in history. This is also the most diverse democratic presidential field ever. I'm going
to be a little blunt with you Congresswoman and don't take offense Senator, but as a woman
of color, why back in old white guy and is this the future of the party? Yeah, you know,
I think I'm actually very excited about
this partnership because it shows what we have to do in our country is that we have
to come together across race, across gender, across generation and across, across class
in order to establish our basic systems as rights.
So AOC, his answer is, is basically fine, but we really need to talk more broadly about
this question because there's some important stuff here. Now, some people wrote to me when
they saw this video, this question and said, David, look at this at some kind of disgusting
reverse identity politics thing and it's terrible. Others wrote to me and said, you know, AOC
has talked about the importance of supporting minority politicians so she could have supported
or endorsed Camilla Harris. She could have endorsed Corey Booker or Tulsa Gabard or Andrew
Yang, but she is instead endorsing Bernie, the old white guy. And it's a good thing to
bring this up to her and to give her an opportunity to explain why she decided to endorse the
old white guy. Now the reality is that there's multiple analyses here and I think we should
make all of them in order to really do this properly.
In principle, there is nothing wrong with a reporter saying, listen, Congresswoman,
you've saidX is important. How does your endorsement of Bernie square with that? And in this case
it's, you've said supporting minority politicians is important. How does endorsing Bernie square
with that no problem. And of course the answer is, well Bernie's platform and Bernie's policies
would get directly to the heart of many of the inequalities that I want to solve. And
a lot of those inequalities run across racial lines. So Bernie's identity is not an issue
here. His platform is at issue and by supporting Bernie I N supporting minority Americans of
all stripes, that would be a completely reasonable thing to do. What I think people are reacting
to is that the reporter seems to be doing it to sort of be edgy and controversial or
whatever. Calling Bernie an old white guy to his face as part of the optics of the whole
thing.
And I get it that it feels sort of deliberately sensationalist and some people aren't liking
that. So I understand that. But there's another issue here that I have not heard discussed
anywhere, which is that Bernie Sanders is part of a minority group that is one of the
most persecuted minority groups in human history. Bernie Sanders is Jewish and this is not politically
correct, but you know, I don't care about that. There are stereotypes and conspiracies
about Jews and money and power in the United States and unfortunately it has become almost
like a fo paw on the left to talk about Jews as a minority group that has suffered massive
historical discrimination. Genocide attempted against, Jews kicked out of, I don't even
know how many countries it is. So there's another angle to this that is an important
one to discuss if you want to play the game that the is playing, which is aside from what's
important being the platform of Bernie, not Bernie's identity, Bernie's identity and Bernie's
story are of minority struggle.
Bernie's parents came to the United States before the Holocaust. They did the, you know,
outsider immigrant struggle thing for lack of a better term, but not everybody in Bernie's
family made it to the United States. Relatives of Bernie's were killed in German, occupied
Poland during the Holocaust and Bernie Sanders, like many Jewish Americans, was front and
center as a participant in the civil rights movement of the second half of the 20th century.
So you can analyze this by saying the question was a bad one, a at minimum it was a poorly
asked question. You can say, well, AOC is endorsement is the correct one because she's
focusing on platform over identity, but even if you don't want to do any of that stuff
and you want to do an identity politics analysis, it shouldn't be a foe paw for Bernie's identity
and Bernie's family history to be part of the story as it is for so many Jews who became
key players and partners in the fight for civil rights of all kinds, for all sorts of
people in the United States and around the world.
Let me know what you think about this. Let me know what your reaction is to the video.
Let me know what you think about [inaudible] answer and handling of it, but also let me
know what you think about the other analysis that exists. If we want to suspend, at least
for me, if, if I suspend for a moment, my disdain for these types of identity politics,
alliances, allegiances, analyses, call them what they want. There's actually an interesting
identity story that links Bernie Sanders to a struggle for racial equality struggle for
a class equality. And that's not a story that's being told. And I think it's a story that
is considered, as I said, a [inaudible], a unfortunately among many on the left and also
among the white nationalists, right. And by the way, who see Jews as you know, the Uber
privileged of any, uh, of any group. Uh, as we've heard many times, even from people I've
interviewed on the program, I want to hear from you. Leave me a reply on YouTube. If
you're watching [inaudible]
it's on YouTube or send me a tweet at [inaudible] Pacman. How do you interpret all of this?
Quick break right back after this