Notwithstanding what has gone on between the candidates, the campaigns and their supporters ever since the campaigns got engaged in the New York primary fight 6 weeks ago, and notwithstanding the very problematic public and online behavior of the more vocal Sanders supporters, Bernie Sanders’ campaign began by raising issues and ideas that were being ignored or ridiculed by the major media and by the other leading Presidential candidates.
- He elevated the discussion on health care by intoducing the idea that there was a choice other than sticking with the Obamacare framework or just repealing it, as the GOP candidates advocate.
- He challenged some fundamental precepts of American foreign policy and actually dared to talk about the problems past CIA misadventures have caused us even in the present day.
- He’s tried to bring a desperately needed focus on fracking and the fierce urgency of addressing our carbon and methane habits that are threatening...everything.
- He’s demanded that we address fundamental threats to our democracy, including the naked corruption that springs from the way that the rich and powerful fund our political campaigns, the parties and the PACs.
- He’s reminded us that despite all the talk about too big to fail financial institutions, those same institutions are even bigger than they were before the federal bailouts.
- Most famously, he’s forced the political world to talk about the vast and growing economic inequality that threatens….everything.
But, despite the bogus narrative that Sanders has reduced everything to economic justice arguments and ignored racial injustices, no Presidential candidate who has won this number of state contests has ever devoted more time and more energy to issues of social justice than Bernie Sanders. He has spoken on issues that have never been talked about by previous candidates, and it hasn’t just been lip service.
He worked very hard on forging an alliance with Black Lives Matter activists, creating a platform piece that addressed their concerns, but he didn’t stop there. No matter where he has spoken, he has made his proposals on police reform a signature piece in his stump speeches, and he has continued to reach out to and speak on the issues that most concern the African-American community.
Earlier Monday, Bernie Sanders made his first trip to Puerto Rico in advance of the primary there, to talk about the unprecendented fiscal crisis there and what he would to help support the island’s revival. Not a place that many Presidential candidates have put on their itinerary.
For all that, perhaps the most striking example of the Sanders campaign’s outreach to oppressed and overlooked minorities has been his consistent efforts to speak to and about the Native American community and their unique challenges and struggles. I am confident in saying that no Presidential candidate has ever approached this level of contact and discussion with native peoples. They have been the invisible minority in past elections, but Bernie Sanders has decided to focus on their disenfranchisement and to address the extraordinary problems that native peoples must confront.
Bernie Sanders and his supporters can take pride in a lot of what this campaign has achieved, but for me, the biggest impact may be in reintroducing many Americans to our native brothers and sisters. It is with that in mind that I want to implore everyone to watch the latest Sanders ad, which features the voices of native Americans and why they are grateful for Sanders’ campaign. It’s an extraordinarily powerful statement about why the Sanders campaign matters.