The ascension of Sen. Sanders
We settle into a retro yellow booth at Henry’s Diner and I pull out a thick sheaf of questions. Eyeing it suspiciously, he asks with that booming Brooklyn accent, “You givin’ a speech?”
He reaches into his shirt pocket and pulls out his own piece of paper.
At 79, Bernie Sanders is a man on a mission, laser-focused on a list that represents trillions of dollars in government spending that he deems essential. When I stray into other subjects, the senator jabs his finger at his piece of paper or waves it in my face.
“Maureen, let me just tell you what we’re trying to do here,” he says. “We’re working on what I think is the most consequential piece of legislation for working families since the 1930s.” Sanders, long a wilderness prophet in Washington, admits that it is strange to be a key member of The Establishment. As the chairof the Senate Budget Committee, the democratic socialist is now pulling the levers in the control room.
He has changed the whole debate in the nation’s capital. He is the guy trying to yank his party back to its working-class roots and steer President Joe Biden in a bolder, more progressive direction.
Sanders passionately believes that the only way to undo the damage done by Donald Trump is by showing that government can deliver. “I would have loved to run against him, to tell you the truth,” he says of Trump. “He’s a fraud, and he’s a phony. That’s what he is, and he has to be exposed for that.”
Even with Trump out of office, Sanders feels we are still on the precipice. Democrats need to speak to the struggles of the white working class, he says, something that “sometimes part of the Democratic elite does not fully appreciate.”
“It’s absolutely imperative if democracy is to survive that we do everything that we can to say, ‘Yes, we hear your pain, and we are going to respond to your needs.’ That’s really what this is about. If we don’t do that, I fear very much that conspiracy theories and big lies and the drift toward authoritarianism is going to continue.”
Sanders is a purist who doesn’t like to acknowledge how intertwined the personal and political can be. Yet he and Biden have a bond that could have a profound effect on the lives of Americans.
While the two men disagree on a lot of things, the former Senate colleagues and 2020 rivals share a mutual respect. Sanders has easy access to the White House.
Sanders says he gives the president a lot of credit for looking at the budget not just as numbers but as a chance to reshape the American identity.
“Who denies the realities of what he is taking on?” Sanders says. “Does anyone deny that our child care system, for example, is a disaster? Does anyone deny that pre-k, similarly, is totally inadequate? Does anyone deny that there’s something absurd that our young people can’t afford to go to college or are leaving school deeply in debt? Does anybody deny that our physical infrastructure is collapsing? Does anybody except anti-science people deny that climate change is real? Does anyone deny that we have a major health care crisis? Does anyone deny that we pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs? Does anyone deny we have a housing crisis? Does anyone deny that half the people live paycheck to paycheck?”
Sanders was a lonely voice on democratic socialism for decades; now he has a squad to keep him company.
He lights up talking about “Alexandria, Rashida, Ilhan, Pramila, Ayanna from Massachusetts,” noting that “they really came from very much the same place that I was coming from, and they all came from different parts of the world.”
Still, Sanders is not in lock step with the most progressive members of his party. He says, for example, that he prefers “fundamental reform” to defunding the police.
“A cop’s life is a difficult life,” he says. “Schedules are terrible. Salaries, in many cases, are inadequate. It’s a dangerous job.
It’s a job with a lot of pressure. We need to significantly improve training for the police. In certain communities, what is going on is absolutely unacceptable. It must be changed, period. We cannot have racism in policing. If you go to Black communities or Latino communities, they want this protection.”
Sitting across from Sanders, it’s wild to contemplate that the 79-year-old has become an icon of popular culture, featured in this month’s Vanity Fair cover story.
Before the senator leaves, he returns to his list with one last directive: “Tell people what we are trying to accomplish.”
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