Bernie Sanders Now Urging Progressives to Run as Independents, Not Democrats
As the Democratic party grapples with its current identity crisis, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), are rallying the faithful members of the left at a series of rallies at various locations.
In what is a sign of the rift in the party, Sanders is talking up a new strategy which involves having progressive candidates run for office as independents, rather than Democrats.
What is Bernie up to here?
The New York Times reported:
Bernie Sanders Has an Idea for the Left: Don’t Run as DemocratsSenator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has a message for his fellow progressives: Why don’t you shed the Democratic label and run as an independent, the way he does?Mr. Sanders’s admonition came in an interview with The New York Times on the eve of a three-day, five-city swing through Western states alongside Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. He predicted that they would draw tens of thousands of people to rally against President Trump, Elon Musk and the influence of billionaires on the American government.“One of the aspects of this tour is to try to rally people to get engaged in the political process and run as independents outside of the Democratic Party,” Mr. Sanders said in the interview on Wednesday. “There’s a lot of great leadership all over this country at the grass-roots level. We’ve got to bring that forward. And if we do that, we can defeat Trumpism and we can transform the political situation in America.”The suggestion that would-be leaders of the left should abandon the Democratic Party picks at a political scab that has never fully healed. Mr. Sanders, 83, a longtime independent, has had a tense yet codependent relationship with the party for decades.
It is rather funny that Bernie has always claimed to be an independent, except when he is repeatedly running for president, in which case he seeks the support and nomination of the Democrats.
With regard to his new plan, conventional wisdom suggests that Bernie’s idea would divide the left.
Ed Morrissey explains it well at Hot Air:
This would go beyond just challenging establishment Democrat incumbents in primaries. If Sanders convinces progressives to run as independents, in most states they would have to do so in general elections. They would then run against Democrats and Republicans, likely splitting voters on the Left while allowing right-leaning voters to unite behind the GOP nominee. That would portend an absolute disaster for Democrats, essentially forcing a party split at a time when they’re already at the nadir of favorability as a consolidated party.This is a call to outright civil war in the political-electoral sense. One has to wonder what Sanders envisions as the outcome of such a strategy.
The progressive wing of the Democratic party clearly sees this latest rift as an opportunity.
It’s still not clear how Bernie’s new strategy is supposed to work. Is running as an independent just supposed to mask the woke, far left policies these disciples of Bernie will undoubtedly embrace?
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