Sanders’ success no surprise

Re The joys of Bernie, Opinion Jan. 22 Why is an old guy doing so well at the polls? It is because he has a made a career of standing up to vested interests that do not represent the best decisions for the American people.

If former U.S. president Jimmy Carter can go on record in 2015 as saying that the U.S. is no longer a democracy but an oligarchy, it is no wonder that Bernie Sanders can tap into a growing discontent of the majority that gets an ever smaller portion of the pie.

Sanders also has the luxury of pointing to successful Scandinavian countries that have better access to education, health care and decent paying jobs. He is slowly educating the American people that democratic socialism is not communism.

Sanders also made the correct call on the Iraq War and when Hillary Clinton tries to attack him on his lack of foreign affairs experience he can wisely point out the difference between experience and judgment — Dick Cheney had the former but lacked the latter in promoting the invasion of Iraq.

Rick Salutin points out that until the end of November the mainstream TV election news coverage totally ignored Bernie Sanders as a serious candidate. Fortunately, nobody is controlling Internet content and it was easy to share Mr. Sanders’s consistent record of challenging those who represented the wealthy.

It is no surprise that young people are getting excited. The last time I looked, a lot of them were languishing in the bottom 99 per cent. Russell Pangborn, Keswick, Ont.