Just days ago, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) suffered a heart attack on the campaign trail; after stents and a week of missing out on free-stuff headlines, he emerged from the hospital resembling a wet, hissing, spitting feral cat, ready to slash and claw at everyone in his path. Citing mass hypocrisy in the party in which he seeks the presidential nomination, Bernie railed at the Democratic National Committee for accepting corporate donations from fossil fuel executives, hedge fund rounders, and health-care-industry muckety-mucks.
Bernie Sanders
It was almost refreshing to hear Sanders return to his socialist-communist ideology, shucking the tiresome impeachment-coup attempt platform, as he rose alongside Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and eclipsing the dreams of former Veep Joe Biden, now struggling to secure a place in the polls. And then out of the clear blue Sanders viciously attacked Warren -- calling her a capitalist. What is up with this man? Is there a medical condition associated with this behavior?
Bernie’s Feral Bite
During his hospital coming out on the ABC program This Week, Bernie dropped a bomb on the matron from Massachusetts that no doubt has her scrambling in crisis-communications mode. The angry and obviously fed up-with-capitalism politician claimed:
“There are differences between Elizabeth and myself. Elizabeth, I think, as you know, has said that she is a capitalist through her bones. I'm not.”
It wasn’t Warren’s record that had Bernie outing his colleague. It was her words that the gentleman from Vermont seemed to insinuate were spoken with forked tongue. Warren spent a good bit of 2018 traipsing around the talking-heads shows shouting about her capitalist chops. While being interviewed on CNBC, the plucky Liz offered: “I am a capitalist. Come on. I believe in markets … I love what markets can do, I love what functioning economies can do. They are what make us rich, they are what create opportunity.”
Elizabeth Warren
Following up at a local council meeting, she appeared before the non-partisan regional group, New England Council, and boasted, “I am a capitalist to my bones.”
Bernie continued his nuanced dance around Warren’s declarations of love for “what makes us rich” by drawing a further distinction that she may not be able double back on, “I am, I believe, the only candidate who’s gonna say to the ruling class of this country, the corporate elite, enough, enough with your greed and with your corruption. We need real change in this country.” I am relatively sure he meant the free-and-open-market folks who drive a wealthy and robust economy.
Yowling on Stage
There has been a significant diversion in messaging from Warren -- capitalist to free stuff for all -- and perhaps Sanders is simply calling out his good friend for what appears to be a fraudulent progressive campaign platform. Sanders has pointed out deftly his number one opponent’s egregious flaw of “being a capitalist to my bones” and, more alarming, her dizzying pendulum swing from progressive to conservative to progressive, oh my! But let’s see who is still standing after the debates.
The next round of herding cats on the Democrat stage in Ohio is upon the exhausted electorate, and it could evolve into a Bernie-dominated finger-pointing, angry yowling-at-the-moon event. Will the two longtime colleagues play he said-she said whack-a-mole, or will they stick to free stuff? Let the pandering for progressive votes begin.
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