Bernie Looks Ahead - In an in-depth interview, Sanders offers a candid and passionate assessment...

Bernie Looks Ahead
In an in-depth interview, Sanders offers a candid and passionate assessment of Trump, Clinton, and the future of his movement.
BY ERIC BATES
October 17, 2016

Excerpt:

When I arrive at his Senate office for an interview, he does not want to chat about the last time we met, at a tribute in Vermont to the late journalist Michael Hastings. He does not want to look back at his historic campaign for the presidency and consider what he might have done differently. He does not want to talk about Hillary Clinton’s shortcomings or the incivility of some of his supporters. He does not mention that tomorrow is his seventy-fifth birthday. He wants to talk about policy, and the nuts and bolts of organizing, and whatever else is needed to bring a greater measure of justice and equality to human affairs. He lives by the Marxist-Calvinist tradition of everything for the cause. He doesn’t have time for roses. Too many people need bread.

“Should we have done things differently, in retrospect? The answer is, of course.”
This single-mindedness of purpose is at the very heart of his appeal. Other people live in this world, and abide by its niceties. Sanders looks forward to the world yet to be, the world as it should be. He set out to lead a revolution, and he nearly succeeded. His agenda is a cross between Das Kapital and Deuteronomy. He rails against the Trans-Pacific Partnership with the same hatred that the rest of us reserve for the New York Yankees, or the New England Patriots, or some other, more leisurely expression of American empire.

Now, after laboring for years as a lone voice on the left, Sanders suddenly finds himself speaking for millions. It’s an unexpected role, and not without its pitfalls. Having won twelve million votes in the Democratic primaries—a showing that exposed the deep rift between younger voters and the party establishment—Sanders faces a new challenge: how to continue to pressure the party from the left without tearing it apart in the process. The internal tensions have been apparent from the start: In August, when Sanders launched his new organization, Our Revolution, key staffers resigned in protest over the group’s structure, which permits it to accept contributions from billionaires without revealing the donors.

On a hot afternoon in September, we speak for nearly an hour in his office on the third floor of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Whenever the conversation turns to something he doesn’t care about, Sanders doesn’t nod politely, or find a way to change the subject. He looks away, or scowls, or dismisses it out of hand. But when the talk turns to tax policy, or student debt, or the minimum wage, he leans forward and speaks with passion and urgency. He looks like a man who sees a margin that needs filling.

https://newrepublic.com/article/137103/bernie-looks-ahead