Bernie Sanders Travels to Trump Country
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Excerpts:
It’s unusual for a high-profile progressive politician to hold a rally in a red state like Kentucky, or even West Virginia, a former Democratic stronghold that has trended conservative in recent years, outside of a presidential campaign. That may be part of the reason why the Democratic Party’s power has eroded so severely across the country.
“It’s amazing, the degree to which, in this country, in states like West Virginia and Kentucky, Democrats have, to a large degree, forfeited these states, conceded these states to right-wing Republicans,” Sanders said in an interview before boarding a plane to leave Kentucky. “In many cases, these are working-class states, these are states where people are struggling economically. The idea, that Democrats would not be fighting, and investing in, and working with people in these states, is to me, beyond comprehension.” He added: “You don’t win if you don’t show up.”
"A lot of folks go where the money is, and I understand that, we live in a time of Citizens United," Sanders said in an interview when asked if he thinks other senators will start reaching out to red states. "People spend their lives running around the country, raising money to take on the Koch brothers, and the billionaire class. I understand that, but at the same time, Democrats have got to develop a strategy that supports the folks in Kentucky, and West Virginia, and in Tennessee and Mississippi and Alabama, and Wyoming, and Utah. That’s something we’ve got to do."
Whatever agenda Democrats decide to elevate as the party works to rebuild, liberal lawmakers may need to sell it by taking the message directly to voters in states where Trump prevailed.
“If the Democratic Party wants to regain their previous prominence, then they will need to spend less time in coastal liberal strongholds and more time on a 50-state strategy that stretches from California to Appalachia,” Shane Assadzandi of Mountaineers for Progress, a progressive advocacy group based in West Virginia, wrote in an e-mail. “Republicans and Democrats alike have been treating West Virginia as a fly-over state for far too long.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/bernie-sanders-health-care-republicans-trump/533109/
