Last updated on September 25th, 2023 at 08:57 pm
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) responded to getting blown out in the South Carolina primary by ranting about “corporate Democrats” on Sunday.
Transcript via ABC’s This Week:
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS CHIEF ANCHOR: You’ve also called yourself an existential threat to the Democratic establishment. I guess that includes House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrats in the House and the Senate.
Don’t you need their support to win in November?
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One of the big pictures that Vice President Biden was just making is that he can help make sure Democrats hold on to the House, take back the Senate and that you’re going to be a burden —
SANDERS: Look —
STEPHANOPOULOS: — for House Democrats and Democratic Senate candidates come November.
SANDERS: That’s absolutely untrue.
You know, the corporate wing of the Democratic Party, a group called Third Way, attacked me and they said we are existential — I’m an existential threat to the Democratic Party. And what I said is, yes, I’m an existential threat to the corporate wing of the Democratic Party.
For too long, the Democratic Party and leaders have been going to rich people’s homes, raising money, and they’ve ignored the working class and the middle class and low-income people in this country. That has got to change.
We got to open the doors of the Democratic Party to millions and millions of people who are trying to get by on 12, 13 bucks an hour, who can’t afford health care, can’t afford child care, who can’t afford to send their kids to college. Those are the people we have to start paying attention to.
Video:
NEW: Bernie Sanders: “I am an existential threat to the corporate wing of the Democratic Party. For too long the Democratic Party and leaders have been going to rich peoples’ homes raising money and they’ve ignored the working class and the middle class.†https://t.co/wGwD0uWZ3e pic.twitter.com/ikApQcNDc7
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) March 1, 2020
For Sen. Sanders, the corporate Democrats ignore working people myth has become a belief, just like Trump’s belief in a “deep state” conspiracy against him. The Democrats that Sanders railed against oversaw the biggest expansion of healthcare access since Medicare was passed. The tax cuts in the Obama stimulus went to the bottom three-fifths of wage earners and were bigger than the entire Trump tax cut for the wealthy.
Bernie Sanders didn’t get blown out in South Carolina due to corporate Democrats. African-American voters crushed Sanders in the state, just as they probably will in future primaries.
A Democratic nominee shouldn’t be chosen by non-Democrats.
Sen. Sanders should be reassessing and pledging to do better with African-American voters instead of going on angry Trump-like rants about the “corporate Democratic” conspiracy against him.
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Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
