Getting To Know Senator Sanders, in His Own Words

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

Could it be that the Fates sent us Senator Bernie Sanders to remind Americans why President Reagan was such a unifying president? We know, there are, even today, those who think of Reagan as a right-wing troglodyte. Clarity eludes them, even via hindsight. Yet the Gipper won his first term by carrying 44 states, his second with 49 states. Reagan finally brought our fractious polity together.

What prompts this rumination is the extraordinary interview the New York Times issued today with the socialist senator. If it doesn’t scupper his chances at winning the presidency, we don’t know what will. It recounts Mr. Sanders currying favor with the Soviets and their hench-regimes in our hemisphere. “I did my best to stop American foreign policy,” the Times quotes the senator as saying.

It’s not our purpose to suggest that Mr. Sanders is a traitor or otherwise disloyal to his country, even if he pursued his anti-American foreign policy while the communists were on the march. A lot of Americans, many of them perfectly patriotic, fetched up in the peace camp. What we’ve always said is that what matters is whether time has brought understanding.

For Mr. Sanders, it has not — not even when the Times interviewer, Sydney Ember, one of its political reporters, fairly begged the Vermonter to confront the history. Feature this exchange in respect of the Sandinista Marxist regime in Nicaragua:

Ms. Ember: In the top of our story, we talk about the rally you attended in Managua and a wire report at the time said that there were anti-American chants from the crowd.

Mr. Sanders: The United States at that time — I don’t know how much you know about this — was actively supporting the Contras to overthrow the government. So that there’s anti-American sentiment? I remember that, I remember that event very clearly.

Ms. Ember: You do recall hearing those chants? I think the wire report has them saying, ‘Here, there, everywhere, the Yankee will die.’

Mr. Sanders: They were fighting against American — Huh huh — yes, what is your point?

Ms. Ember: I wanted to —

Mr. Sanders: Are you shocked to learn that there was anti-American sentiment?

Ms. Ember: My point was I wanted to know if you had heard that.

Mr. Sanders: I don’t remember, no. Of course there was anti-American sentiment there. This was a war being funded by the United States against the people of Nicaragua. People were being killed in that war.

Ms. Ember: Do you think if you had heard that directly, you would have stayed at the rally?

Mr. Sanders: I think Sydney, with all due respect, you don’t understand a word that I’m saying.

What due respect? The senator dripped with Marxist condescension and propaganda. Ms. Ember, moreover, seemed to us to know exactly what the senator was saying and couldn’t believe her ears. The Sandinista regime was, from the get-go, a Kremlin puppet operating against the Nicaraguan people. President Reagan saw through that with crystal clarity.

The Contras had plenty of controversy, but they waged a war for just aims — to help the Nicaraguan people finally get a real vote. We were right to help them. Once they got the vote, they threw out Sandinistas in a democratic upset. Eventually, the whole Soviet Union was brought down — without a particle of assistance from the socialist government of Burlington, Vermont.

At the moment, it looks as if the Democratic Party is edging back from Mr. Sanders’ socialism and toward the traditional glad-handing of Vice President Biden. A lot can happen, though, in the next year. If Mr. Sanders can gain the nomination for president or even the vice president, his own words from the 1980s will remind that it’s a good time to remember Reagan.


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