Great interview with Rolling Stone talking about the debate and how to beat Trump. It also goes into detail how some of our candidates are, unfortunately, beginning to use language similar to the health insurance lobby against Medicare for All.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/bernie-sanders-debate-interview-exclusive-884254/
Taibbi: I want to talk a little bit about what your strategy would be if you were in the general election. A lot of the candidates, both in the last race and in this year already, they fall into the trap when they’re campaigning against Donald Trump of trading insults with him, getting into this endless cycle of barbs, and the media loves to cover that.
Correct me if I’m wrong, I feel like you have a different strategy. You don’t seem to want to engage Trump on that level. You always seem to want to continue talking to voters, almost past him, and focus on the issues, focus on your message of opposing corporate power.
If you were the nominee, how would you deal with Donald Trump differently from the other candidates?
Sanders: I think, Matt, that what you said is basically correct. On one hand you cannot ignore his pathological lying, his racism, his sexism, his xenophobia, his religious bigotry. I mean you can’t do that. You have to defend people who are being attacked by this racist president.
But on the other hand, if you become obsessed, and I think this is the point you’re making, if you become obsessed with Donald Trump’s tweets, you fall into his trap. So I think the main point we make, when we go to states like Michigan, when you go to Wisconsin, when you go to Pennsylvania, when you go to Florida, is you say to the working people of those states, “You know what, not only is this guy a liar, he’s a fraud.
He told you that he was going to stand with the working class of this country, he told you he was going to take on Wall Street and the drug companies and the insurance companies. Well the evidence is clear, he lied to you.”
You don’t stand with the working class when you try to throw 32 million people off of health insurance. You don’t stand with the working class of this country when 83% of the tax benefits that you push for, that you succeeded in getting, go to the top 1% at the end of 10 years. You’re not standing with the working class.
You remember, Matt and Katie, that when he campaigned he said, “I’m a different type of Republican, I’m not going to cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.” Absolute lie. His budget does exactly that.
So he said, “I want American companies not to go abroad.” Well he’s producing products for his own company abroad. “Oh my God, it’s terrible that we have all these undocumented people in this country, I hate undocumented people.” Oh yeah? Well they’re working in your companies.
They’re working at your resorts, Donald Trump, you’re a goddamned liar. Forgive me. Shouldn’t say that.
Taibbi: Everybody’s using profanity now, it’s okay.
Sanders: All right. And that’s what you expose him, is the fraud. Here he is hiring undocumented people in his own resorts, after he is ranting and raving and demonizing undocumented people. So I think that is the point you make to working-class people: he lied to you.
And I think we also have to understand, and you’ve heard me say this a million times, Matt – that is to my mind, it wasn’t that Trump won, it’s that the Democratic Party lost. And the Democratic Party forgot about the tens of millions of working-class people in this country, black and white and Latino, Native American, Asian-American, people who are struggling.
Half of the people in this country are living paycheck to paycheck. Car breaks down, they’re in severe trouble. They can’t afford to go to the doctor. Those are the folks we have to start paying attention to. And when we do that, you’ll defeat Donald Trump.
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