If you've ever heard Bernie Sanders speak, this probably sounds familiar.
Now is the time for a political revolution!
Political revolution!
Political,
revolution!
He talks a lot about big change.
Political revolution.
But recently, I found some old footage of Bernie Sanders
that I didn’t really know what to make of.
I came across some archival tape of his cable access program
that he ran when he was mayor of Burlington.
Here, I'll just play it for you.
Also, our library.
We have a beautiful library.
When I look at this tape, I see him talking about extremely boring things.
A lot of people don’t realize that Bernie Sanders is a veteran politician,
veteran elected official.
He has always maintained this dual-track view, these very high aspirations, very ideological…
Political revolution which is going to transform America.
with the idea that day to day you need to be a competent politician who does things.
Burlington will soon have a beautiful downtown supermarket.
Most political journalism, whether it's pro-Bernie or anti-Bernie, tends to focus on that first track,
the ideology.
Bernie Sanders’ platform is really pie in the sky.
An ideologue without a lot of substance. He is really trying to inspire people to be
involved in what he calls a movement more than a campaign.
But the best way to predict how someone will act in the future, is to look what they’ve allready done.
Bernie Sanders has a record.
So, what does it tell us about what kind of president he'd make,
and his odds of getting there in the first place?
A lot of the time when you see people make the case for Sanders, they just talk about
those big ideas.
...complete change of politics in America.
...a revolution of spirit, a revolution of priorities.
Some people love those big ideas, but others don’t.
And what I said to them is, look at when he was a mayor.
He didn't try to abolish private businesses in the city.
He tried to make the tax code more progressive and he tried to provide more services.
He is aware of how to operate in these kinds of spaces.
The gentleman from Vermont is recognized for five minutes.
When Bernie Sanders has to cast votes not in perfect alignment
with what he says his principles are…
What happens in those situations?
There are three kinds of Bernie Sanders votes in Congress.
One is the sort of courageous dissent.
The invasion of Iraq, that's going to pass.
He takes a stand against it.
I will vote against the unilateral invasion and occupation of Iraq.
The other is the kind of big legislative package that everybody agrees to.
And some members, Bernie among them, often cast dissenting votes there just to say, no,
I want to hold out for my pure vision.
But then there's the third kind.
There's a progressive bill where Democrats need his vote for it to pass.
And it may not align with exactly all of his principles.
You look at the Affordable Care Act.
Mr. Sanders, aye.
The stimulus at the beginning of the Obama administration.
Mr. Sanders, aye
Dodd-Frank financial regulatory reform. A bill, in which in a number of ways moves us forward.
If there were 80 Bernie Sanders’ in the Senate, he probably would've passed a different bill.
But he's not blind to the fact that incremental progress is real progress.
One area that I don’t hear a lot about in the primary is foreign policy.
Where does Bernie stand in terms of America's role in the world?
Sanders has a distinctive approach to foreign policy from the other candidates in the field.
He's been critical, not just of the specifics, but of the sort of nature of American military
posture around the world.
No more B-2 bombers, no more "Star Wars." Let’s make the quality products we need.
Let’s invest in American industry.
No, I won't yield.
For years, we have loved Saudi Arabia, our wonderful ally.
The only problem is that the people that run that country are murderous thugs.
He has raised, I think, sharp and necessary questions about the nature of the U.S. alliance
with Israel, with Saudi Arabia.
Donald Trump and Barack Obama have both spoken about their desire to not be mired in so many
Middle Eastern wars, but they haven't taken the kind of tough steps that would actually
generate change there.
And I think Sanders might.
So thinking about a potential match-up between Bernie and Trump in the general election.
What's the affirmative case for Bernie in that situation?
If you look at the numbers from 2016.
Not only did Trump lose the popular vote, but he got only 46 percent.
If you could unify all the non-Republicans.
So the libertarian voters, the Green voters and the Democrats, you would beat Trump and
you would beat him easily.
And Bernie has a track record of doing that kind of thing.
Bernie is sometimes felt by Democrats to be a divisive force in the party.
But I think another way of looking at it is that Bernie speaks for people who are not
necessarily into the Democratic Party.
If you combine people who love the Democratic Party, people who, you know, post Nancy Pelosi memes,
with Bernie's people.
Then, you have a unified anti-Trump force.
Bernie is beating Trump in the key swing states.
We know these are places in the upper Midwest where NAFTA is unpopular.
I happen to believe that our trade policies over the years have been a disaster for workers
in this country.
Bernie is somebody who sometimes attracts complaints for privileging economics over
other things.
But I do think that that's a winning electoral strategy.
One of the things that Mayor Pete, for example, and Biden too, talk a lot about is this sort
of like sense of a return to unity and hope.
I refuse to accept the notion that we can never have cooperation again.
We have been told by some that you must either be for a revolution or you are for the status quo.
I think Sanders’ is view on this, which I think is correct, is that politics is a
location of struggle.
None of these Democratic candidates are going to be able to fully deliver on all their promises.
There are going to have to be deals made, compromises made.
That's the political process, but you need to be able to bring people along with you.
And the question is...
And that's something that I think Sanders is going to be able to do.
He has this slogan,
And that, you know, is in part about like,how does politics work?
Nobody is so amazing that if everybody then just walks away that all these problems are
going to be solved.
What we need as a society is a politically engaged populace.
We don't know, if Bernie brings a bunch of his younger supporters into the electoral process,
he boosts youth turnout.
Will that effect last?
But it's guaranteed not to work if you don't try.