Long Game: The Bernie Sanders Effect with Michele Norris (Pt. 2): The Progressive Playbook Reshaping Democrats

Welcome back to Law and Game, the Bernie Sanders effect. This is where Senator Sanders won his first election, but barely, when he ran for mayor of Burlington, Vermont in 1981. He wound up working right there at City Hall. His journey from a winning margin of just 10 votes to crowds counted in tens of thousands is a story of persistence, ambition, and against-all-odds rock star appeal. He had already lost two races for Vermont governor, another two for Senate, when he ran for mayor of Burlington as an independent, as a self-described socialist. He was taking on an establishment Democrat who had had the job for a decade. He was not a native Vermonter. He was not even a Democrat. The Burlington papers thought he would lose by more than 30 points, and that's why it was national news when Bernie Sanders, the guy from Brooklyn, somehow pulled it off. Face it, you don't find too many socialists in elective office in this country, and one is elected mayor of a sizable city. Well, that's news. His victory might have been surprising anywhere, but it was hard to fathom for 1980s Vermont. This is Mayor Bernard Sanders. Mayor Sanders got a lot of attention recently, not only with his 10-vote victory, but mostly because he is a socialist. My goodness, how did this happen in good old conservative Vermont? It is the question Bernie Sanders has been asked his entire career. How on earth are you pulling this off? And his answer has been just as consistent. I won the election, I think, because we effectively put together a coalition of low-income people. In our society, theoretically a democratic society, you have a handful of people who control our economy. You have maybe two percent of the population that owns one-third of the entire wealth of America, and these people have incredible power, and they determine the destiny of our entire country. As one of the nation's only socialist mayors, Sanders enacted new affordable housing policies. He pushed Burlington toward renewable energy. He expanded child care and bolstered the city's public schools. He also made Burlington and its government more fun. He started a little league program and held weekend sports events. Here he is playing tennis. He planted trees across the city and beautified the city. He beautified the Lake Champlain waterfront. He launched a free summer concert series, a winter ski festival, poetry readings, and lectures at City Hall. He even hosted his own television show, where he talked directly to his constituents about what was on their mind, meeting them where they were, literally. What school do you guys go to? Who can tell me? Does that have a shot to be a winner, do you think? What do you think? I can survive on a horse. Anybody can survive on a horse. Well, let me start off by saying it's an interesting hairdo. Bernie Sanders really was the people's mayor, and for him, part of the job was looking beyond the horizon. As mayor, he delved into foreign policy, occasionally traveling overseas and regularly challenging President Ronald Reagan. When President Reagan signs the bill authorizing this appropriation, the United States government, the wealthy and most powerful nation on earth, will officially be at war with the government of the United States. We'll officially be at war with the government of Nicaragua. Somehow it worked for Burlington and for Bernie Sanders. After four successful terms as mayor, he became the first independent elected to the U.S. House in decades. He served for more than a dozen years before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 2006. Thirty-five years later, still an independent and a socialist, Bernie Sanders has caucused with the Democrats and chaired the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee and the Budget Committee. When he launched his first run for president back in 2015, it was notable that this independent senator, who was proudly not a Democrat, was now running to be the leader of the Democratic Party. He'd campaign in these early primary states, early caucus states, and he'd be talking to Democratic voters, members of the Democratic base, people who ultimately decide the president. And they'd ask him, well, are you a Democrat? And we'd hear him say, oh, yes, for all intents and purposes, yes, I'm a Democrat. I caucused with Democrats. I'm running for the Democratic nomination. But for a lot of us in Vermont, hearing him say those words was an inherently jarring experience. It was almost amusing because here he was trying to reach out and connect with Democratic voters and saying, I am one of you. But at the same time, for those of us in Vermont who know that he's never been a Democrat, it was jarring because he's not. And he never has been. Did that seem? Did that seem at the time opportunistic or pragmatic? A little bit of both. Bernie Sanders pitched himself as something that sounded impossible on paper. The ultimate insider, a politician who had been in Congress for a quarter century, and the ultimate outsider, building a movement to upend the political system. Just like when he ran for mayor, it was not supposed to work. And yet. Bernie Sanders got some of the biggest, loudest, most fervent, crowds of the Democratic primary that year. He almost beat Hillary Clinton in Iowa, and then he won New Hampshire. What we have got to do is wage a political revolution where millions of people who have given up on the political process stand up and fight back. The march of an independent socialist toward the Democratic nomination caused friction inside the party establishment. Democrats worried that Senator Sanders was dragging the party too far to the left, that if he somehow won the nomination, his party would fall into the hands of the Democrats. This was the last thing they were going to do. his policies would be too radical to win the general election. In the end, Senator Sanders did not get a chance to prove them wrong, because of course, he lost the Democratic primary. And then Bernie Sanders did run for president one more time, finally losing to Joe Biden in the 2020 primary. Today, Bernie Sanders is 85 years old. He says that he's unlikely to take another run at the presidency, but he is still out there, still drawing record crowds. As he barnstorms the country with the Fighting Oligarchy tour. Your presence here today is making Donald Trump and Elon Musk very nervous. You can see in these events shades of how he ran the city in Burlington. Live music and performances, almost a festival atmosphere. He invites other politicians up there with him. Candidates he supports and nurtures and mentors, some of them big names, some of them long shots. You could see it as passing the torch or as handing over the instruction manual that he spent a lifetime writing. Focus on the working class, health care as a human right. Challenge the establishment, blue or red. Then take that message directly to voters, door to door. The Bernie Sanders playbook will face its biggest test this November, as these candidates try to change the Democratic Party and the political system from within. So you have endorsed more than 70 people in Democratic primaries and 75% of them have won their primaries. That is, those are impressive numbers. Not bad. Not bad. Those are impressive numbers. Better body average than most baseball players. The Wall Street Journal looked at your endorsement strategy and they called you a kingmaker. That's not a word you often hear in progressive politics. Are you comfortable with that? No, I'm not a kingmaker. Did they get it right? I'm not a kingmaker. I'm part of a movement of fantastic people. I'm one of many. I have a role to play and I ran for president. I'm better known than most and I play my role. But this movement does not succeed without thousands and thousands of grassroots activists who are busy knocking on doors and in fact have the courage to run for office. You talked about people who voted for you and then voted for Donald Trump. Yeah. Your dear friend. My dear friend. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did something interesting. She did this exercise where she used social media and said, you know, there are people who voted for Donald Trump and people who voted for me. And while people were scratching their head wondering about this, she just went to the source and said, help me understand how you could cast a vote for me and cast a vote for Donald Trump. I'm certain that there are a lot of people who supported you in your presidential elections, presidential campaigns who also drifted into that camp. What needs to happen to win some of that? Well, Alexandria is great on social media. I mean, she is extraordinary. That was a brilliant thing to do and the right thing to do. I'll tell you what I did. I went to West Virginia where I think Trump got 70% of the vote. I went to the county where he did the best just to answer that same question. And what did you hear? It was Mingo County. Mingo County, West Virginia. Okay. And we went to that. It was a remarkable meeting. I loved it. It was a town meeting. People got up and they said, healthcare is a disaster. We're worried about our educational system, worried about the environment, all that stuff. What I learned is if you go to West Virginia, just as one example, there is no Democratic Party. There's no alternative. It virtually does not exist. And that's true in a number of states in this country. It doesn't exist. But many of those people probably look at the Democratic Party and wonder if they represent them. That's right. Where did Democrats go wrong in losing those? No, that's right. What I think what Trump did, again, this gets back to my view. Uh-huh. That the Democratic Party failed working class people on economic issues. I think they have a lot to be proud of in terms of fighting for civil rights, for women's rights, for gay rights, for environmental stuff. But in terms of working class issues, no, I don't think they've done a good job. So a lot of workers out there say, well, you know, we voted for you. Our fathers voted for you. To hell with you. Trump is, we don't know about Trump, but he's loud and he's, you know, he's a bold guy. So what does Donald Trump understand about reaching working class voters? What does he understand about fear, about anger that Democrats don't understand? You are asking very good questions, all right? Trump understands that the American people are angry. And he has given them a way to express their anger in exactly the wrong ways. All right? In other words, in my view, Trump is there to represent as a billionaire, his fellow billionaires. You see them around him all the time. That's his job. That's what he does. But what he says to people, can't afford health care. You can't afford housing. You can't afford prescription. You know what the answer is? It's the undocumented people. It's the trans people. It's black people. It's the Canadians. It's the Mexicans. Every day there's a new person that we are supposed to hate. And people say, ah, that's the reason why. Damn undocumented. Get rid of all of them, and I'm going to have health care. Well, it doesn't quite work that way. But he's doing what demagogues have always done. It's what they did to the Jews in Germany, right? Come up with an enemy. But it makes people feel good in the short term. It doesn't necessarily solve their problems. So what do Democrats need to do to understand that anger and harness it in a constructive way? I hope we don't lie. We tell people the truth. And that's what I try to do. And the truth is that the complicated issue, a lot of factors, the major reason that the working class, has gone nowhere, in fact, declined in the last 50 years, has to do with the greed of the people on top. We have seen a massive transfer of wealth over the last 50 years from the bottom 90% to the top 1%. Today you've got one guy, Mr. Musk, owning more wealth than the bottom 53% of American households. So our whole economic policy in the last 50 years, in many, many ways, has been to make the very rich richer and leave working class families behind. But those people in that county in West Virginia, are they reacting to that message? Yeah, they react. They possibly react. Do they? Yeah. Yeah. People want, look, my experience that I've been doing this for a while, is people are a lot smarter than politicians think they are. Politicians think, oh yeah, I'll come up with a slogan. What's the message? Give me five words. What's the tweet? People are looking at this world, it's a crazy world. They want to get an understanding of why the hell their kids are going to have a lower standard of living than they do. Well, Mr. Musk owns half the world. What's going on? Why are they pushing? They're pushing AI on us when it may result in millions of jobs being lost. Who has the power? That's what they want to understand. And Democrats, A, have got to explain, but you can't explain it if you're taking money from these guys. That's the problem. So when you're talking about explaining, you're talking about messaging. And as you noted, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who everybody calls AOC, I don't know what she thinks about that. We'll have a chance to ask her. I call her Alexandria. Yeah, I wonder what she thinks about, you know, when your name is shrunk that way. But she is very good at communicating. She is great. And when you first ran for president in 2008, 2016, she was still tending bar in New York City. And she is now one of the most influential people in American politics. And she's your buddy. You two travel together. You hold rallies together. You go to concerts together. And you're on stage together. And she has a big decision to make. And I imagine that you're in her ear when she makes big decisions. And I'm not going to ask you whether you think she should run for president because that's one of the things she's weighing. We know that. She's talked about it. I'm not going to ask you if she's going to. She should run for Senate because she's a grown woman. She can make that decision on her own. But I wonder if you have allowed yourself to imagine a world in which someone like AOC is the president of these United States. I think we are moving in that direction. I think if you just look at the polling that's out there, recent Wall Street Journal poll on virtually, every issue that people like Alexandria or I talk about, widespread support, didn't used to be the case. Today, I think people recognize that our health care system is broken, dysfunctional. Sixty-three percent now support Medicare for all. Very strong majority of Americans support taxing billionaires. Tremendous number of people support raising the minimum wage to at least $20 an hour, et cetera. So the agenda of the people like Alexandria, Roe Conner and others, and I have been pushing, I think, is now the agenda that most Americans think makes sense. And I think once you have— Even if it's attached to socialism, even if it's attached to democratic socialism, even if it's sold in the person of a woman, because Americans have had, you know, a difficult time. The rest of the world has no problem electing women to its highest office. No question about it. Sexism is alive and well in America. But if you're asking me, I don't know. If you're asking me, do I think a woman could win under a strong progressive platform? Yes, I do. What are the factors she should consider in making that decision? Well, you know, she is young. She has to make choices. She can stay in the House, move up the ladder there. She could run for the Senate. Which means she would be challenging another one of your buddies, Charles Schuman. Yeah, she would be challenging Senator Schuman. Would that put you in a difficult position? No. I would support Alexandria if that was the case. Okay. Well, she can run for president. But as you said, that's a decision she will have to make, and nobody can make it for her. I'm tempted to ask whether you think she should. I know I wouldn't, but now. No, don't ask it. Okay. All right. You know, it's hanging out there. You know, you want to. That's her decision. You've been watching Long Game, the Bernie Sanders effect. Don't go anywhere. The story of Bernie Sanders might be told best through the lens of his contradictions. Contradictions that make him hard to define on the national stage, and sometimes a frustration for the Democratic Party. The great contradictions of Bernie Sanders is that he is this incredibly powerful, important figure in Democratic politics, has never joined the Democratic Party, he's never wanted to join the Democratic Party, and has, in fact, kept the Democratic Party at arm's length. Can we just sit with his contradictions for a minute? Sure. Sure. Sure. Can we just sit with the Vermonter who sounds like the New Yorker? Yes. You know, one would think that he'd lose that Brooklyn accent. You know, you spend enough time in Vermont, no one in Vermont has a Brooklyn accent except Bernie Sanders. He is up in years. He is. He's 85 years old now. 85 in September. And yet he is associated with a very youthful progressive movement. That is an amazing contradiction, and it's something that I think a lot about, because when you get right down to it, at 85 years old. Some of these younger voters, he's older than their grandparents. He's literally older than their grandparents. Okay. I hadn't thought about that, but yes. It's only natural to wonder, well, why is that? Why aren't they connecting with someone who's closer to their age? And I think that Bernie Sanders is a unique figure, and to the extent that he's authentic, he's candid, he's unapologetic in his progressive views. And I think that that ultimately helps drive that appeal with younger voters, who are desperate and eager for that kind of voice. I think one of the other contradictions is that he has a prism through which he has a lot of control. He has a lot of control. He has a lot of power. And that is class. That for him, everything is about working class and the interests of working class. And yet, he is trying to appeal to a broader base of voters, for whom class is not necessarily the defining issue. It is one of many issues. And so I think all of these different views, and I think that's what I'm trying to do here, is to try to get a more progressive view of the world. And I think that's what I'm trying to do here, is to try to get a more progressive view of the world. And so I think all of these contradictions create a unique political figure that is Bernie Sanders. When you think about your friend and mentor, Bernie Sanders, interesting character. From one of the smallest states in the country, mayor of Burlington, which is not a small town, but it's not exactly a big city either, right, is now one of the most influential people in American politics. Certainly one of the most influential people in American politics. And so I think all of these contradictions create a unique political figure that is Like cheese and macaroni. Yeah. How often do you talk to him? Very often. I just saw him on Friday. We'll often call one another if he hears I'm sick or if I hear that he got a cold, I'll give him a call. You know, we speak quite often, and I think that it is a funny, it's, I think on its surface, it's a funny thing. No one would think that this 80-year-old Jewish guy and this 30-something Puerto Rican girl would have such a close friendship. But underneath all of that, we both grew up very similarly. He was born to really working class and low income, from parents that had emigrated here and, or from a family that had emigrated here. And I grew up the same way. And there's a lot that we are able to relate to one another. We also had very similar struggles when we first got to the house. And I think our worldview, of course, is very similar. He is very proud of you. Thank you. I just talked to him right before we talked to you, the day before we talked to you. And he sees you as, you know, as his buddy and his equal. You know, that it's clear when you talk to him about that. And I have actually commended you in the way that you've talked about your own ambitions. And I don't want to get into the, well, she or won't she, you know, run for senator or president. But it was interesting because he talked about it with a certain degree of excitement. He said, if you run for the Senate, you've got his endorsement. He did not hesitate. And, you know, he talked about the reasons why you could run for office. And so I don't want to get into that. You know, you've talked about it. You'll announce it when it's ready, when you're ready. But what is interesting is for people who have their own big decisions to make, what is interesting is what decisions in your life help us understand how you will make this one? Yeah, yeah. You know, I think it's, it's, it is interesting. It's very funny because this decision can be seen as a very unique or singular one and a very rare one that not many people have to make. No, not many people have to make this decision. However, almost all of us have to make big life-defining decisions in our lives in one way or another. And it really is no different. I think that we all weigh where we come from, what we want for ourselves professionally, personally, our limitations, how we want to grow. I do think that one aspect to this that doesn't always get, that probably doesn't get the focus in the weight that it plays in my life is my view about life in general. I don't see politics in its narrow, in this very kind of narrow electoral frame as the all-consuming reality of my life. And I think it's because I don't see politics in my life. And I think it's because I got elected at a young age. And so I think about the conditions of this country. I think about, I really do come at this from what is best for the country at this moment, what is best for the state and my community in this moment. And also in the mix of all of that is what do I think makes up a good life? And, you know, I think a lot of people. That's interesting because that's usually not one of the factors that people talk about. How do I have a good life when I run for president? Because the trade-off is pretty big when you take a step like that. Yeah, I think so. And I think when most people run for office, they run very often as a second act or they run after a long career in lower levels of the ballot. And I think that's a big part of it. But I was put in a very unique position. I was the youngest woman, am the youngest woman in American history to ever get elected to Congress, which means that when you start your congressional career at 50, which was, and I think at that time, whether it's 53 or 63, around that average age, you've lived a lot of life. A lot of people have, you know, pursued education to the extent that they wanted to, their first careers to the extent that they wanted to, family to the extent that they wanted to. And I got elected at the beginning of a lot of my life. And so I've often tried to approach this as, how do I do the most good and also try to have the same experiences that everyone else has tried to have? And how do I balance that? With what is best, what I think is best for the country? I was talking recently to a former Bernie Sanders staffer who said, Bernie had to walk so that Mamdani could run and AOC could run and El-Said could run. And so, and I think there's something to that. These candidates that he's helped support are often called Bernie's kids. Yes. Is that an apt word to use? Well, I think that, I don't think Bernie Sanders himself is comfortable with the phrase. And even I, I kind of, had this reflexive, like, well, we shouldn't really call them that, maybe, because, I mean, they're adults, they're having their own message, they have their own ideas. They're not necessarily saying, well, vote for me because I'm an acolyte of Bernie Sanders. But at the same time, there's no denying the fact that they're following the trail that he plays. There's no denying the fact that their ability to compete in swing states, in competitive races, is a direct result of the success that Bernie Sanders had. And they're following his lead and their success. And they're succeeding because he helped them succeed. Delicate question, and last question. He doesn't like the word legacy. Right. You know that, too. I do. What is that about? You know. Do you understand it? I do. I think, you know, you and I recently spoke, and you asked me about Bernie Sanders being grumpy. And I think that there's something. So you put that on me. About the reputation that some people say he's grumpy. And I don't think that he's grumpy. I think that he's eager. I think that he's frustrated because of the pace at which things change. I think that he is impatient more so than grumpy. And with that in mind, I think that he's not thinking about legacy because he has so much work that he still wants to do. I think that he's not thinking about legacy. And I think that he's not thinking about legacy. Many takes on the frumpy, frozen, frowning Bernie ended up on the New York City subway. In famous photos and paintings. Gabbing with the girls on Sex and the City. They put Bernie Sanders in E.T. and Game of Thrones. And on that park bench with Forrest Gump. In Golden Girls, The Big Lebowski, Feeding Pigeons in Central Park. Senator Sanders has gotten the Larry David treatment on SNL. I'm the only guy in the world I'm the only candidate up here who's not a billionaire. I don't have a super pack. I don't even have a backpack. The senator has inspired clothes that walk the runway at Paris Fashion Week. And has had sit-downs with pop culture icons like Killer Mike and Halsey and Cardi B. All right, guys, so this is Cardi and Bernie. A memeable Bernie Sanders has been photoshopped into Valentine's Day cards, into video games, and into iconic characters like a pseudo-demo. I'm Doc Brown from the film Back to the Future. That playbook for reaching younger people by being essentially and authentically yourself helped elect Another star of pragmatic socialism, a leader who's been much more proactive in memeing himself. New York, will you accept this rose? I'm talking about the young Zoran Mamdani. And that is maybe why it made sense for Senator Sanders, again in a worn-out gray coat, to be the one to swear Mayor Mamdani in. Please repeat after me. Mayor Mamdani first encountered the Bernie Sanders effect the year he turned 24. I, Zoran Kwame Mamdani. What was it like to hear him articulate his ideas for the first time? What struck you? It felt like I belonged. You know, when he spoke about his vision for our country, it made me feel less alone. And I know that so many felt that way. So many felt as if they were the only ones to think these things. To dream for these things. And then you saw someone who didn't just have the same views, but had the courage to fight for them at a scale that I had never seen. You look at the campaign that he built, you look around the world today, and you see that that is a campaign that fundamentally transformed the way that we think about politics, the way that we talk about politics, and also what we understand politics to be for, which is to fight for working people. Working people. Is that what you really heard there, is that he was fighting for working people? Yeah. For dignity. For the dignity of the working person. And, you know, it's very funny to be sitting here speaking to you about Senator Sanders, because at one point in my life, I thought the closest I was ever going to get to Bernie was when I took a selfie with a cardboard cutout of Bernie after I finished a canvassing shift in Iowa for him in the 2020 primaries. And to now be able to know him as a person, it is a gift that I'll never forget. It's a gift that I'll never be able to fully be able to appreciate as being real. When and how did you meet? I first met Bernie, I think it was when I went to D.C., and we actually spoke in person. The first time we spoke on the phone, I actually remember where I was. I was in Eastern Queens at a place called Usha Foods. It's a great food, if you're ever looking for Indian food in Eastern Queens. Okay, our market. And I was sitting there at the table. And I was pitching him on why he should endorse our campaign. And he was both kind and also straightforward. And that's something that I think many people love about Bernie. I don't know if you recall that video of him in the New York Times editorial board. I'm not good at back-slapping. I'm not good at pleasantries. If you have your birthday, I'm not going to call you up to congratulate you so you'll love me and you'll write nice things about me. He can be gruff. He can be lovable in that way. Because so much of politics has just become that. And for him, politics is all about who it's for. And so in that phone call, one of the things I remember was it wasn't just enough that the vision was aligned or that it was inspired by what he had done and continues to do. He also wanted to know if we could win and how we would win. And one thing that I will never forget him asking me was, how many followers do you have? It was a reference to social media. And he was saying, if you want to be able to survive the campaign and everything that comes after it, you have to build an infrastructure that can carry your message to people. Some of his observers and also his critics say he doesn't care about electability. He cares more about ideas. But you're saying he does care about electability. I think he cares about both of them. I think he cares about what it is that you're fighting for and then that you're able to deliver it. And he has always made clear that he doesn't care about electability. And he has always made clear to me it's not enough to just believe in the right thing. You have to deliver it. Bernie. Senator. How are you? I sat down with Bernie. And in that conversation, this was over the summer as I was running after the primary and after we'd met in D.C. And it was in that conversation that he emphasized the importance of filling in potholes, of clearing the roads, of ensuring that your successes can be measured by working together. He wants to give people a place to express themselves. And one of the things he has emphasized to me whenever we speak is how can we deliver arts and joy to people as well as material, as well as material improvements in working class people's lives. And so when we delivered $50 tickets to the World Cup, when we delivered $100 tickets to the U.S. Open, when we delivered 70,000 free tickets to the Met Opera, a lot of it is also inspired by him having said you have to give bread and roses to people so they can not just be able to live here, but they can feel fulfilled. So this really is an echo of his mayorship. I mean, you really have looked to that for your playbook. It is a model. And I think what I so appreciate is that it's a model of success that can be measured by people. Bottom line is, which is going to fall on your shoulders if and when you win. It is an enormous responsibility to show the world and people throughout this country that our value system can govern well and efficiently, that we can fight for justice, that we can create a better world for all people, not just for the 1%. We'll be right back with more of Long Game, the Bernie Sanders Effect. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. He's been writing his entire career, the electability of his ideas and the candidates who share them are all facing the ultimate test on Election Day. We'll be right back. Thank you so much for joining us for Long Game, the Bernie Sanders Effect. We'll leave you with some final thoughts from Senator Sanders himself and some of the For the young leaders, he is inspired. confidence to people to show that hey average people can stand up stop being so afraid a florida where working families can thrive where we have what we need like good paying jobs like a 25 minimum wage since launching this campaign and forever i have never taken a corporate pack check and i never will i'm tired of picking up the tab for billionaires are you working people we are not an afterthought we are not a backup plan finally meet the unmet promise of america and guarantee everybody health care through medicare for all i'm calling on a progressive agenda we're saying hey it's common sense to push for universal child care in our country it's common sense i don't take corporate pack money or trade tax dollars for donations and i sure as hell don't own a billionaire spending millions to try and influence this election we are going to fight the corruption whether it's in the white house or in the halls of congress because the grift has to stop don't be so intimidated by the establishment that will be an important legacy