Q&A with Bernie Sanders: 'Time for profound changes for Democratic Party'
Updated: NOVEMBER 27, 2016 — 1:09 AM EST
Excerpt:
In the fullness of time, future historians may well declare Sen. Bernie Sanders the biggest winner of the 2016 election, arguing that even though he lost the battle for the Democratic nomination, he won the war of ideas.
Sanders appears at the Free Library at 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 28, 2016.
Q&A with Bernie Sanders: 'Time for profound changes for Democratic Party'
As the smoke clears, Sanders emerges with an approval rating 10 points above those of both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and with full-on rock-star status with millennials, who soon will be the largest group of voters. He appears poised to remake the Democratic Party in his own image as an unapologetic populist who champions the vanishing middle class.
Much of this would have been unthinkable a year and a half ago, when the wild-haired 75-year-old democratic socialist from Vermont declared his candidacy and was met with derision by the political commentariat. Sanders refused corporate donors and super PAC dark money and instead campaigned tirelessly on a shoestring budget made up largely of bundled $27 donations. Relentlessly railing against evils of ever-escalating income inequality, he went on to do far better than many expected. All of which is told in granular detail and vintage Brooklandic patois in Our Revolution, Sanders' 450-page recap of his candidacy and the political revolution that almost was. In the midst of a whirlwind book tour - which stops at the Free Library for a sold-out appearance on Monday night - Sanders spoke with us last week, concerning his postmortem on the 2016 election and his vision for the way forward.
What is your takeaway from the election? "I told you so"?
The Democrats don't control the Senate; they don't control the House. They don't control some three-quarters of the governors' chairs in the country, and they lost some 900 legislative seats in statehouses in the last year. It's time, I think, to take a very hard look at what the Democratic Party now stands for, what they're projecting to the American people, and, in my view, it is time for very, very profound changes to the Democratic Party. We need to make it clear what side the Democratic Party is on. It has got to be on the side of working people. It has got to be on the side of young people. It has got to be prepared to take on a billionaire class, and Wall Street, and insurance companies, and drug companies, and the fossil-fuel industry. It has got to be prepared to have a new vision for where this country - the wealthiest country in the history of the world - can go. That is what the Democratic Party is going to stand for, and when it does that, I think working people - who have deserted the Democratic Party in droves, whether it's whites, blacks, Latinos, Asian Americans, or whatnot - are going to come back and know that this is their party, where they can feel comfortable and represents their dreams.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20161127_Q_A_with_Bernie_Sanders___Time_for_profound_changes__for_Democratic_Party_.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
and SamK still om point. 
