I haven’t seen Bernie this mad since the last time the Congressional cafeteria ran out of pudding.
Sanders has decided he’s not going to be railroaded in 2020 like he was in 2016. He wrote a letter in which he goes right at several large progressive groups that were previously aligned with Hillary Clinton. In it, he decries an ad campaign that painted him as hypocritical for not criticizing millionaires after he himself became one. He now exclusively demonizes billionaires.
The New York Times obtained and published the letter.
Mr. Sanders’s criticism of the Center for American Progress, delivered on Saturday in a letter obtained by The New York Times, reflects a simmering ideological battle within the Democratic Party and threatens to reopen wounds from the 2016 primary between him and Hillary Clinton’s allies. The letter airs criticisms shared among his supporters: that the think tank, which has close ties to Mrs. Clinton and the Democratic Party establishment, is beholden to corporate donors and has worked to quash a leftward shift in the party led partly by Mr. Sanders.
“This counterproductive negative campaigning needs to stop,” Mr. Sanders wrote to the boards of the Center for American Progress and its sister group, the Center for American Progress Action Fund. “The Democratic primary must be a campaign of ideas, not of bad-faith smears. Please help play a constructive role in the effort to defeat Donald Trump.”
Sanders specifically targets ThinkProgress, who put out the ad campaign, although they are funded by the Center for American Progress (a George Soros money pit).
Bernie seems really upset but is it actually a smear? He did indeed stop criticizing millionaires after he started to make millions himself. In fact, Sanders even extolled the joys of free market capitalism when he snarkily replied that it’s ok he’s a millionaire because he wrote a best-selling book. He obviously hates being questioned on this front.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Saturday pushed back against criticism he received after saying this week that he is a millionaire.
“I didn’t know that it was a crime to write a good book, which turned out to be a best-seller,” the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate told a crowd in Gary, Ind.
I didn’t know it was a crime to start a business and employ tens of thousands of people either, but he sure likes to rail against such entities. If only they had taken up the moral beacon that is writing a bad book. Like most good communists, Bernie’s actual disposition is “do as I say, not as I do.” He paints himself as the Marxist grandpa for his young millennial supporters and but he still really likes his three houses when the cameras are off.
ThinkProgress did respond to Bernie’s brush back and had this to say.
Jodi Enda, the editor in chief of ThinkProgress, said in a statement that her website’s work is not reviewed before publication by CAP or its action fund, and that the groups “had nothing to do with the article or video about Senator Sanders or articles related to any other political leader.” She said the website “will not take sides in the Democratic primaries,” and suggested that Mr. Sanders was trying to bully the website in response to posts he does not like.
That’s exactly what he’s trying to do and it’ll probably work. Unlike 2016, Sanders now has a lot of clout within the party that he’s not even a member of. His followers are rabid and loyal and they will not sit by and watch the Clinton wing take him down again. If CAP and ThinkProgress want to exist in a few years, they’ll probably have to cave here.
It is nice to see all this infighting as it shows the deep fractures within the Democratic party. As I posted earlier this morning, you have shots being fired between Pelosi and AOC on Sunday as well. While a lot of the media are already booking their victory party tickets in 2020, assuming a Democrat will win, I think they underestimate how brutal the primary is going to be. It’s going to make Trump taking on the GOP establishment in 2016 look like child’s play. Whoever emerges as the nominee is going to be beaten to a pulp.
Sanders is not coming to play around this time either. When Biden enters, then things will get really interesting. And who does Obama endorse? Imagine if Hillary and Obama both come out for Biden and how angry that’s going to make a huge portion of Democratic voters.
Much like the Never Trump movement, there is a movement behind the scenes to sandbag Sanders within the Democratic establishment. They believe his radical, socialist policies won’t play in the battleground states and that it will cost them the House. They may be right but I’m not sure they have the firepower to stop him this time.
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