Can Bernie Sanders Steal Trump’s Base?

Hunter DeRensis

Politics, United States

In an election year with a wide bench of diverse, first-time presidential candidates who’ve coopted his platform, can Bernie Sanders outdo his 2016 performance?

On Tuesday, 2016 Democratic runner-up Bernie Sanders announced his second campaign for president of the United States. In the span of four years, the seventy-seven-year-old Vermont senator has turned pet issues like Medicare-For-All, tuition-free college, and rejection of Super PAC money into Democratic Party staples endorsed by almost all the declared 2020 candidates. A self-described socialist since his college days in the 1960s, Sanders has single-handedly brought mainstream respectability to the term “democratic socialism” in the United States. Early polling puts him near the lead for the nomination, and in the first dozen hours of his announcement he raised more than twice as much money as his nearest competitor in half the time.

President Donald Trump welcomed his fellow New York native. Speaking to a press junket in the Oval Office, he said, “Personally, I think he missed his time, but I like Bernie because he is one person that, you know on trade, he sort of would agree on trade. I’m being very tough on trade, he was tough on trade. . . . He ran great four years ago, and he was not treated with respect by Clinton. And that was too bad. I thought what happened to Bernie Sanders four years ago was quite sad as it pertains to our country.”

Daniel McCarthy, editor of Modern Age, believes the sentiment to be genuine. “I think he does like Bernie, maybe as his idea of what a Democrat is supposed to be,” he told TNI. McCarthy also believes that Trump views Sanders as a weak opponent in a general election. “I’m sure Trump is confident that nationalism beats socialism in America. If Bernie branded himself as a left-nationalist, conservatives would have more to worry about, but he won’t do that.” Trump ended his comments to reporters with a knowing smile, saying that “You’ve got a lot of people running. But only one person is going to win. I hope you know who that person is.”