Ran across an interesting background piece on Politico about the story behind Bernie Sanders’ support of Jessie Jackson’s 1988 presidential run. Some helpful insight on where Sanders is coming from and his relationship with the Democratic Party. Here’s a paragraph to get you started:
Sanders’ endorsement of Jackson is of a piece with his civil rights work of the early 1960s; in ’88, after all, he “stepped across the color line,” as Jackson has put it, doing something very few other white elected officials did that year. But Sanders has mentioned his Jackson endorsement only sporadically and selectively over the years. That’s partly a reflection of the reality that what drove Sanders’ decision was not really the color of Jackson’s skin—it was their mutual belief that corporate and political power brokers had rigged the system against the poor and working class. “Our kinship was on a shared vision of the country, a shared vision of the issues,” Jackson told me. “We was talkin’ the same talk.”