IS BERNIE SANDERS, 75, TOO OLD FOR 2020? HIS FIERCEST FANS SAY NO
Pour ses plus fervents partisans, Bernie Sanders, 75 ans, n'est pas trop vieux pour les élections de 2020
Bernie Sanders a échoué face à Hillary Clinton aux primaires du parti démocrate lors de la dernière élection présidentielle américaine. Le sénateur du Vermont a néanmoins réalisé une campagne ayant permis de mobiliser de nombreux militants, jeunes pour la plupart, qui espèrent bien que cet homme de 75 ans osera se présenter à nouveau… en 2020 !
CHICAGO — With their idol turning 79 in 2020, some fans of Sen. Bernie Sanders who had gathered for the second annual People’s Summit were thinking wistfully about the next progressive hero who could take the presidential baton but many of the most ardent Sanders fans remain laser- 1. Sen. = Senator / to gather se réunir / wistfully mélancoliquement / progressive progressiste / baton témoin (course de relais) /
focused on him. Nelson Mandela, they noted, became president of South Africa in his 70s. And Sanders is the only candidate they trust.
2.“That man is like superhuman,” said Joy Manbeck, 38, of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, who got a tattoo of a finch and the word “revolution” on her arm after a finch landed on Sanders’ lectern during a campaign speech last year. “He still plays basketball. He walks to work. I don’t care. I want him. Period. I want Bernie.”
PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRATS
3. Supporters like Manbeck could hold the key to Democratic unity as the party tries to regroup after its stunning loss to Trump deprived it of all control in Washington. If Sanders declines a run in 2020, they will have to decide if they can get behind a new progressive champion in the Democratic Party; if they will accept the eventual nominee, whoever it is; or if they will take their passions — and votes — elsewhere.
4.Sanders’ wife, Jane, said in an interview that he had not ruled out running again and had remained active, traveling and advocating policies that help working-class people. “Ageism is the last ‘ism’ that seems to be acceptable to people, and I never felt that it was whether somebody was too young or too old,” Jane Sanders said. “You win some. You lose some. And you keep on going and maybe you can win the next one.”
5.He would, after all, be only a year older than former Vice President Joe Biden. And Trump, the oldest American to assume the presidency, will himself turn 74 in 2020.
TOO OLD?
6. But away from the boisterous People’s Summit in Chicago in June, some Sanders fans conceded their worries and suggested
that the senator should focus on backing younger, fresh-faced candidates to push the Democratic Party leftward.
7.Max Weiss, a 19-year-old sophomore at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the communications director for the Democratic Party chapter on campus, said he hoped Sanders would not run because it would be unhealthy for the party, which badly needs new faces.
8.He said he gets excited thinking about Democrats on the rise around the country, like Jon Ossoff, who is running in a House special election outside Atlanta, as well as Sens. Al Franken of Minnesota and Kirsten E. Gillibrand of New York, who have not yet run for president. “Sanders has the star power right now,” Weiss said. “He could transfer that to other candidates.”
9.While the next presidential election is years away, Sanders is urging his liberal supporters to stay engaged. “We may have lost the election in 2016, but there is no question that we have won the battle of ideas, and we are continuing that battle — and that is, brothers and sisters, no small thing,” Sanders said last month to raucous cheers. “The Democratic Party must finally understand which side it is on, and that cannot be the side of Wall Street or the fossil fuel industry or the drug companies.” 10.For some, the emotions of 2016 remain raw. Breanna Spiteri-Phillips, 37, a cook from Jackson, Michigan, began to cry as she thought about Sanders’ loss to Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries. SpiteriPhillips eventually voted for the Green Party candidate, Jill Stein, in the general election. “He is the only honest candidate that I have seen in the last 20 years,” SpiteriPhillips said as she wiped her eyes. “I’m not concerned about his age. He’s been kicking butt for the last 70 years.”
11.For now, Jane Sanders said, her husband is not thinking about 2020. She said he was making sure the Democratic Party takes up issues that affect working-class families and fights policies by Trump that would worsen economic inequality. “I’m energized by the resilience of the message of the campaign,” Jane Sanders said. “Our focus is we’re not going to lose any ground. We’re not going to stop.”
12.Warren, another well-known progressive senator who has openly challenged Trump, is a logical heir to Sanders’ movement. But a few Sanders fans remain frustrated that she did not endorse him during the primary and is seemingly more reserved than the freewheeling, scruffy Vermonter.
13.Meanwhile, even as Bernie and Jane Sanders say they want to focus on transforming the Democratic Party, Bernie Sanders hinted that he might have another run in him. While answering a question about how to keep going after a loss, Sanders recounted that he lost many elections before being elected mayor of Burlington, Vermont, and later to Congress. “Persistence is extremely important,” Sanders said. “Yeah, you run and you lose. So what?”