Bernie Sanders Isn’t a Democrat: And That’s a Real Problem When He Needs Democrats for His “Revolution”
Amanda plays the key note of discrepancy regarding the Sanders campaign. It’s one thing to be influenced and adaptive of external party ideas and candidate postions, it’s another thing entirely when you get consumed by them, as the GOP has been discovering to their woe for the past decade.
Is Bernie Sanders a Democrat? It’s a question that has mostly been ignored during this primary season, even though Sanders continues to identify as an “independent” in his senate work while trying to get the Democratic nomination for president. Sanders has been downplaying this, however, and portraying himself as a Democrat during this campaign, saying during a town hall earlier this year, “So of course I am a Democrat and running for the Democratic nomination.”
Except….he’s really not. As Sanders notes, he caucuses with the Democrats and has a committee appointment given to him by the Democrats, but he isn’t a Democrat. He could have run for the senate as a Democrat. No one was stopping him running as a Democrat. His refusal to was a freely made choice and he made it for a reason. The odds are that Sanders returns right back to being an independent the second he loses the nomination.