{"id":35793,"date":"2024-08-28T12:20:42","date_gmt":"2024-08-28T19:20:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=35793"},"modified":"2024-08-28T12:20:43","modified_gmt":"2024-08-28T19:20:43","slug":"bernie-sanders-no-kamala-harris-is-not-more-progressive-than-i-am","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2024\/08\/28\/bernie-sanders-no-kamala-harris-is-not-more-progressive-than-i-am\/","title":{"rendered":"Bernie Sanders: &#8216;No, Kamala Harris Is Not More Progressive Than I Am&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/media-library\/bernie-sanders-and-kamala-harris.jpg?id=53559194&amp;width=1200&amp;height=400&amp;quality=90&amp;coordinates=0%2C127%2C0%2C1206\" alt=\"Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Then-Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris chat during a debate in Atlanta, Georgia on November 20, 2019.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(Photo: Saul Loeb\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">In a note to supporters, the Vermont senator rebutted former President Donald Trump&#8217;s claim that the Democratic nominee was the country&#8217;s &#8220;most liberal senator.&#8221;<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/author\/jake-johnson\">JAKE JOHNSON<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Aug 27, 2024 (CommonDreams.org)<a href=\"https:\/\/giving.commondreams.org\/-\/XKQWGZVR\"><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sen.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/tag\/bernie-sanders\">Bernie Sanders<\/a>&nbsp;on Tuesday refuted Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump&#8217;s characterization of his 2024 Democratic opponent as the &#8220;most liberal senator&#8221; in the U.S., writing in an email to supporters that &#8220;for better or for worse,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/tag\/kamala-harris\">Kamala Harris<\/a>&nbsp;is not more progressive than I am.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;It is always hard to respond to Trump&#8217;s lies because, a day later, his lies become even more preposterous,&#8221; wrote Sanders (I-Vt.), responding to &#8220;the constant claim&#8221; from Trump, Republican lawmakers, and right-wing media outlets &#8220;that Kamala Harris is more &#8216;radical&#8217; and more &#8216;far left&#8217; than Bernie Sanders.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;But, as we come together to defeat Trump and elect the vice president,&#8221; Sanders continued, &#8220;let me just remind you of one simple fact: The so-called &#8216;radical&#8217; and &#8216;far left&#8217; agenda that we are fighting for is, in poll after poll, far more popular than&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/tag\/donald-trump\">Donald Trump<\/a>, more popular than the Republican Party, and it is supported by a strong majority of the American people, including Republicans and Independents.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;More tax breaks to billionaires, budgets to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, letting polluters destroy our planet, letting drug companies charge whatever they want for medicine&#8230; That is radical.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sanders&#8217; message to supporters came a day after Trump wrote in a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/truthsocial.com\/@realDonaldTrump\/posts\/113029367032556514\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Truth Social post<\/a>&nbsp;that Sen.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/tag\/elizabeth-warren\">Elizabeth Warren<\/a>&nbsp;(D-Mass.) &#8220;is considered far more Conservative in the U.S. Senate than Comrade Kamala Harris ever was.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;She will only bring us Poverty, Chaos, and Heartache! Kamala is rated, by far, the Number One Most Liberal Senator,&#8221; the former president added<em>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The Washington Post<\/em>&#8216;s Philip Bump&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/2024\/08\/27\/no-kamala-harris-is-not-most-liberal-senator-history\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">observed<\/a>&nbsp;in a column Tuesday that Trump&#8217;s post was rooted &#8220;in a line of attack deployed during the 2020 election.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Then, Trump&#8217;s allies seized upon a rating&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20200816001336\/https:\/\/www.govtrack.us\/congress\/members\/kamala_harris\/412678\/report-card\/2019\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">from the government-data organization GovTrack<\/a>&nbsp;that assessed Harris&#8217; record in the Senate in 2019,&#8221; Bump wrote. &#8220;Harris was rated &#8216;most liberal compared to All Senators,&#8217; GovTrack indicated, an assessment derived from its analysis of sponsorship and co-sponsorship of legislation.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;But GovTrack&#8217;s analysis of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.govtrack.us\/congress\/members\/kamala_harris\/412678\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Harris\u2019s entire tenure in the Senate<\/a>&nbsp;paints a different picture,&#8221; he added. &#8220;In the 116th Congress, the one that ran through 2019 and 2020, Harris was the fourth-most liberal senator, according to GovTrack, coming in behind Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.).&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Trump&#8217;s Truth Social post echoed rhetoric that he has&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/paigehtml\/status\/1826337088863973592\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">deployed at recent campaign rallies<\/a>&nbsp;in an effort to cast Harris as a &#8220;radical left believer.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In his email to supporters on Tuesday, Sanders wrote that &#8220;when Trump, Republicans, and even some members of the corporate media try to scare you with words like &#8216;radical&#8217; and &#8216;far left,&#8217; it&#8217;s important to understand what those policies actually mean and to know that these &#8216;radical&#8217; ideas are already in place in many countries around the world.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;When we talk about guaranteeing healthcare as a right for all our people, we&#8217;re talking about the ability to get the healthcare you and your loved ones need without fear of going bankrupt. We&#8217;re talking about the ability to change jobs without fear of losing your healthcare,&#8221; Sanders wrote. &#8220;When we talk about paid family and medical leave, we&#8217;re talking about being able to spend the first few months with your newborn child without rushing back to work the next week.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;That is NOT a radical agenda,&#8221; he added. &#8220;The Republican Party and Donald Trump: More tax breaks to billionaires, budgets to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, letting polluters destroy our planet, letting drug companies charge whatever they want for medicine&#8230; That is radical.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/author\/jake-johnson\">JAKE JOHNSON<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jake Johnson is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/author\/jake-johnson\">Full Bio &gt;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Then-Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris chat during a debate in Atlanta, Georgia on November 20, 2019.&nbsp; (Photo: Saul Loeb\/AFP via Getty Images) In a note to supporters, the Vermont senator rebutted former President Donald Trump&#8217;s claim that the Democratic nominee was the country&#8217;s &#8220;most liberal senator.&#8221; JAKE&#8230; <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2024\/08\/28\/bernie-sanders-no-kamala-harris-is-not-more-progressive-than-i-am\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35793"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35793"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35794,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35793\/revisions\/35794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}