Sen. Bernard Sanders, an independent who describes himself as a democratic socialist, said to his Vermont constituency in a local newspaper article that the time might be right for him to make a run for the White House.
He said that America has turned to the point where wealth discrepancies are fueling anger — and he thinks his socialist policies could prove the answer the nation needs, Breitbart reported. Specifically, Mr. Sanders said there’s a “sense of urgency” that America needs to come to grips with, and it’s rooted in the fact that political leaders maintain an “obscene level of wealth inequality” over those they govern.
He said to the Rutland Herald that “if there are not people, and there may well be, who are going to discuss these issues, somebody’s got to do it.” And he added that his possible run for the higher office was “very much in the early stages of … deliberations.”
Mr. Sanders, a week earlier, told Salon that he doesn’t “wake up every morning with a huge desire to be president of the United States,” but that he would run in order to bring his policy ideas to the forefront of national talk.
He also told the Herald that his socialist views on economic equality — and opposition to Social Security cuts — were more mainstream than many admit.
“Virtually everything I’ve told you, guess what? The views that I’m representing have majority support,” Mr. Sanders said in the paper. These ideas are not radical ideas. These are ideas that the vast majority of the people, I think, agree with.”
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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