Bernie Sanders was the darling of the radical left in the 2016 election.
The self-styled Democratic Socialist took Hillary Clinton to the limit in the Democrat Primary.
Sanders was considered a top-tier contender in 2020, but his career just imploded in the most insane interview you will ever see.
CNN’s Jake Tapper interviewed the Vermont Senator on his “State of the Union” Sunday show.
Tapper inquired about Sanders thoughts on the “abolish ICE” movement gaining steam in the Democrat Party.
Expected Presidential candidates like Senators Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, and Elizabeth Warren have all embraced the radical proposal being pushed by the open borders movement.
Tapper asked Sanders, “Do you agree that ICE should be abolished?”
Sanders was given a slow pitch softball to whack out of the park and establish himself as the leading anti-Trump candidate in 2020 by ranting about ICE being Nazis—but instead the Vermont Senator stunned liberals by passing on the opportunity to condemn ICE.
“I think that what we need is to create policies which deal with immigration in a rational way,” Sanders answered, sidestepping the question. “And a rational way is not locking children up in detention centers or separating them from their mothers,” Sanders stated.
Liberals contend that Sanders refusal to endorse abolishing ICE disqualifies him from cementing himself as a candidate of the resistance in 2020.
A recent Rasmussen poll found half of all Democrats oppose deporting illegal aliens if they show up at the border with children.
Sarah Jones of the New Republic expressed the left’s outrage at Sanders in a recent piece.
Jones wrote:
“Sanders could be a source of consistent, left-wing pressure on party leadership, whether or not he runs in 2020. If he intends to build a lasting political movement out of the remnants of his last presidential campaign, he’ll need to become an effective counterweight to the mainstream Democratic Party. But based on his ICE comments and the uneven results of his campaign efforts, Sanders no longer seems like such a sure figurehead for disgruntled Democratic voters.”
The fact that Sanders declined to express support for abolishing ICE is considered a misstep in Democrat Party politics and shows just how far off the deep end the party has plunged in 2018.
But that isn’t Sanders only problem on the left.
Jones took Sanders to task for failing to be a full-on communist and support government takeover of industry.
Jones wrote:
“It’s certainly true that Sanders is to the left of most Democrats. But contrary to how he’s often portrayed in the media, he is not a doctrinaire leftist. … Sanders is not a revolutionary. His views aren’t even entirely consistent with democratic socialism, the political tradition he claims. It’s one thing to call for breaking up the big banks, and quite another to call for the nationalization of private industries.”
There will be lots of shiny new toys for Democrat voters to check out in 2020.
Sanders pushed Clinton to the last primary in 2016 because he was viewed as the purist candidate for an increasingly left-wing base.
But Sanders refusal to endorse abolishing ICE will allow other candidates like Gillibrand, Harris and Warren to stake out the ground to his left.
We will keep you up to date on any new developments in the upcoming 2020 election.