Charles Cooke of National Review Online takes aim at the nation’s best-known socialist senator.
I can comprehend why Bernie Sanders is stressed out. The Biden agenda — which is really the Bernie agenda now — probably represents Sanders’s last chance to vote for a slew of big government programs. After this year, we’ll likely get divided government for a while, and by the time the Democrats are back in power, Bernie will have retired.
But goodness me is he embarrassing himself in his desperation.
Yesterday, Sanders tweeted this.
“While the majority of the American people have expressed overwhelming support for the Build Back Better Act and delivering for working Americans, Republicans continue to oppose it.”
“Maybe, just maybe, that’s why they have to resort to voter suppression.”
The “American people” have “expressed” no such thing. Per NPR:
“Democrats have staked their political future on enacting President Biden’s plans for trillions in social spending, but a new NPR/Marist poll shows that most voters are skeptical of the party’s proposals.”
“Just 41% of the survey’s respondents said they support the Build Back Better bill, the roughly $2 trillion bill currently being negotiated in Congress. Nearly three-quarters of all Democrats said the support the bill but only 36% of independents and 13% of Republicans agreed.” …
… This is not “support.” And it is certainly not “overwhelming support.”
Bernie seems to have a real problem grasping concepts such as “support” and “majorities.” As the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake has pointed out, Bernie frequently argues that Senators Sinema and Manchin “shouldn’t be able to thwart what 48 of 50 Democratic and independent senators support,” as if the only majorities that matter in the Senate are those within the Democrats’ caucus. But they’re not. …
… Taken together, Sanders’s position is that “democracy” requires a minority of the U.S. Senate to pass a bill that a minority of Americans supports, and that its failure to do so reflects a preference for “voter suppression.” Do they not teach math in Burlington?