Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders revealed on Thursday what he wants and why he has stayed in the 2016 race after acknowledging that, “it doesn’t appear that I’m going to be the nominee.”
In an op-ed for the Washington Post, Sanders wrote about his thinking as the general election grows nearer.
“As we head toward the Democratic National Convention, I often hear the question, “What does Bernie want?” Wrong question,” Sanders wrote. “The right question is what the 12 million Americans who voted for a political revolution want.”
He continued, “And the answer is: They want real change in this country, they want it now and they are prepared to take on the political cowardice and powerful special interests which have prevented that change from happening.”
Specifically, Sanders said he and his supporters want an economy “not based on uncontrollable greed,” to overturn the “disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision,” universal voter registration for everyone age 18 and up, criminal justice reform, less dependence on fossil fuels, and the end of America’s “rapid movement” toward “oligarchic control of our economic and political life.”
Sanders’ demands for change do not signal a candidate preparing to extract something from the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee, Hillary Clinton. But it may foreshadow how he’d like to shape the Democratic platform and the nature of the debate going forward.
The Vermont senator will deliver a speech titled, “Where We Go From Here” on Thursday night in New York City. One week ago, Sanders delivered a Web address on an identical topic from his home state of Vermont, but did not drop out.
