Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders gave a speech at the late Rev. Jerry Falwell's hard-right conservative Liberty University this morning, the only Democratic candidate to accept the university's invitation to do so. You can watch the speech
here, or read reader
Le Champignon's liveblog
here.
Liberty University claims to be the world's largest "Christian" university, full of very Jesus-filled students living lives of Jesusy devotion, so it was a perfect venue for Sanders' stump speech on the inherent immorality of America's steeply rising inequality and fraying safety nets.
"In my view there is no justice, and morality suffers, when in our country millions of children go to bed hungry," Sanders added. "That is not morality, and that, in my view, is not what America should be about." [...]
"In my view there is no justice when thousand of Americans die every single year because they don't have any health insurance, and don't go to a doctor when they should," he said. "That is not justice. That is not morality. People should not be dying in the United States of America when they are sick."
We should feed the poor and care for the sick is, one would presume,
the message you want to take to the world's most devout and moral people. So
how did that go?
His pitch on economic injustice was met with scattered applause and many students sat politely with their arms folded, declining to clap.
Yes, aside from a "small but very loud cheering section" of visiting supporters, he didn't make many inroads. They didn't want to hear about feeding the poor and caring for the sick, not while gay Americans were marrying and abortion was still legal.
Head below the fold for more Bernie.
Many students said they respected Sanders for speaking at the university but said his views on social issues were a deal-breaker. [...]
"I'm glad they invited him but I wouldn't vote for him," said Nathan White, a junior from Houston. White said he opposed gay marriage and abortion rights and described himself as a capitalist.
You know, "Christian" things.
In fact:
It wasn't until after the speech, during a 17-minute question-and-answer portion, when the crowd was the most enthusiastic. David Nasser, the university's senior vice president for spiritual development, asked Sanders directly to "reconcile" his view that he wants to safeguard the most vulnerable with protecting "the child in the womb." A deafening applause erupted for more than 20 seconds.
But Sanders, in his typically stern tone, didn't shy away and gave a vigorous defense for his views on abortion rights.
"I do understand and I do believe that it is improper for the United States government to tell every women in this country the very painful and difficult choice she has to make on that issue," Sanders said. "And I honestly, I don't want to be too provocative here, but very often conservatives say, 'Get the government out of my life, I don't want the government telling me what to do.'"
So there we are. It was definitely a smart move by Sanders to take his message of morality and compassion to an audience forever speaking on the need for morality and compassion, but he probably won't be getting many new votes from the True Believers. His message of feeding poor children and providing all of our sick with health care comes off as a bit preachy, after all, and Jesus was pretty clear we needed to sort through the "social issues" before getting into the weeds with things like that.