Vox: Sanders supporters are annoying & antagonistic, so let him win, & Dems will magically get along

[highplainsdem]

29. Again, according to the info I just found, he was on the ballot as a presidential elector, and not

as the SWP candidate.

Joe Lockhart piece in CNN a few days ago:

http://m.cnn.com/en/article/h_b2b013b579c3336442a6c4f131303fdb

Let's start with what he calls himself (and the label Trump tries to stick to every Democrat): a socialist. There's no ducking this one -- Bernie has said a lot over the years, and a lot of it on camera. The Associated Press reports that in a 1983 reelection debate he said, "I am a socialist, of course, I am a socialist." The Washington Examiner reported last year that in 1980 and 1984, Sanders campaigned for the Socialist Workers Party. The report said that Sanders "proudly endorsed and supported" the Marxist group's presidential candidate, Andrew Pulley, in 1980. According to the report, in a press release, Sanders said, "I fully support the SWP's continued defense of the Cuban revolution."

From the Washington Examiner report Lockhart references there:

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/campaigns/bernie-sanders-campaigned-for-marxist-party-in-reagan-era

The 2020 Democratic presidential primary candidate and United States senator from Vermont, now 77, often scoffs at comparisons between his brand of self-described "democratic socialism" and communism. In recent years, he has said he is merely interested in having the United States look more like Sweden, a social democracy with a broad welfare state but a well-functioning private sector.

But his personal files from his time as mayor of Burlington, from 1981 to 1989, archived at the University of Vermont, show that he supported and campaigned for the communist SWP and maintained a close relationship with its senior members. While Democrats campaigned for President Jimmy Carter in 1980 and Walter Mondale in 1984, Sanders spent the Reagan era supporting fringe Marxists with no chance of reaching the White House.

In 1980, Sanders "proudly endorsed and supported" Andrew Pulley, the party's presidential candidate, who once said that American soldiers should "take up their guns and shoot their officers." Sanders was one of three electors for Pulley on the Vermont ballot, stating in a press release: "I fully support the SWP's continued defense of the Cuban revolution."

Four years later, he backed and campaigned for the SWP presidential nominee Mel Mason, a former Black Panther, saying it was important for there to be "fundamental alternatives to capitalist ideology." During the campaign, Mason praised the Russian and Chinese revolutions and said: "The greatest example of a socialist government is Cuba, and Nicaragua is right behind, but it's still developing."