Sanders 2020
Related: About this forumThe Nation: Bernie gets personal on the pandemic, politics, and why he's still in the race.
By John Nichols
TODAY 12:18 PM
Excerpt:
The Senator and I spoke for the better part of two hours on the evening of April 1. This was a reasonably open-ended conversation that touched on many topicsincluding his sense of the transformational moment in which the United States finds itself, his certainty that the government must respond far more boldly to the public health and economic challenges posed by the Coronavirus Pandemic, and the ways in which he is assessing his campaign amid calls for him to quit the race and calls for him to continue. He even explained his lockdown routine. Here are some of the highlights of our conversation.
John Nichols: Lets begin by putting things in perspective. Whats your sense of where things stand today?
Bernie Sanders: At this particular moment, we are entering into the most frightening and dangerous period in the modern history of this countrycertainly in my lifetime.
We are looking at a global pandemic with Covid-19. We do not know how many people will die in America, but the numbers could be in the hundreds of thousands. We dont know how many people will be infected, but it will certainly be many, many millions.
There are estimates that there may be as many as 30 to 40 million people, maybe more, losing their jobs. Last week, the number of unemployment applications was the highest by far since records have been kept. This week may be even higher.
So youre looking at an economic crisis of unprecedented magnitude. Going back to the Great Depression, as a comparison, unemployment may actually be higher in this crisis than it was in the 1930s. And were looking simultaneously at a massive healthcare crisis, which could kill hundreds of thousands of people and absolutely disrupt our way of life for all people, including those who are not infected. Thats what were looking at!
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/exclusive-interview-sanders-coronavirus/
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Alex4Martinez
(2,821 posts)I hate politics, it even divides us here on DU.
The state by state, early and late primaries, the electoral college, it all sucks.