Bernie Sanders Brings 'Our Revolution' to Boston

BOSTON, MA — Bernie Sanders was back in Boston Sunday night, dropping his "yuge" campaign persona (mostly) and instead using a promotional appearance for his new book to map out a blueprint for progressives and to pinpoint exactly where he believes Democrats messed up in losing this election to Donald Trump.

The Independent Senator from Vermont spoke in conversational tones at a full-to-bursting Berklee Performance Center Sunday evening. But audience members who attended in hopes of glimpsing Sanders' stump speech fire did not leave disappointed.

"It is important to understand that the status quo is not working, that people one end of the country to the other have contempt for the economic establishment, the political establishment, the media establishment," Sanders said, voice rising. "And one of the reasons I am now part of Democratic leadership is I intend to do everything I can, with your help, to transform the Democratic Party to a party that stands with working people, low-income people, and a party that is bread to take on the big-money interests."

There was more at the end, but it was lost to the thunderous applause and cheers.

Sanders, along with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, was appointed last week to Senate Democrats' leadership team. Although Sanders ran as a Democrat in his insurgent presidential primary campaign, he will remain an Independent even as he helps shape Democrats' message moving forward. Sanders will serve as Democrats' Outreach Chair, as well as taking a post on the Senate Budget Committee.

In his wide-ranging speech Sunday in Boston, Sanders urged Democrats to cease clinging to "identity politics."

"It is not good enough for somebody to say, 'I'm a woman, vote for me.' That is not good enough," he said. "What we need is a woman who has the guts to stand up to Wall Street, to the insurance companies, to the drug companies, to the fossil fuel industries."

But Sanders' message was not only for the party, but for the more than 1,000 seated before him.

Many Americans, including self-identified progressives, live in a "silo-ized community," from whose confines they can't see the extremities of poverty and pain across the country, Sanders said.

"People in parts of this country are dying at a younger age than their parents because of alcohol and drugs and suicide — the despair level is extraordinary," he said.

By failing to speak to those people, Sanders believes Democrats lost the race.

"The truth is that what Democrats have not been talking about enough is the understanding that there is an enormous amount of pain in this country," said Sanders, adding that the party failed to speak to those people who so desperately wanted change and who rightfully mistrust the establishment.

President-elect Donald Trump's win cannot simply be chalked up as racism or sexism, Sanders said, but to his ability to speak to those disenfranchised populations. That Trump successfully posed as the "change" and "anti-establishment" candidate, Sanders said, "would be laughable if the consequences were not quite so dire."

America has a long history of discrimination and racism going back to its earliest colonizers, Sanders said.

But, "We are not going back to a bigoted society."

You can watch one excerpt from Sanders' speech below.

Image via Youtube