Bernie Sanders cautioned authoritarianism 'may be on the march' shortly after inauguration, book reveals

(Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

published 20 September 2021

In the early days of President Biden's tenure, not too long after the Jan. 6 Captiol riot, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) attended a meeting in the Oval Office alongside a group of leading Senate Democrats — one in which he almost "immediately raised the stakes," Jewish Insider writes per Bob Woodward and Robert Costa's upcoming book Peril.

"If we cannot deliver, authoritarianism may be on the march," Sanders told Biden, according to an account of the meeting detailed in Peril. The Vermont senator then argued the party badly needed to pass a major rescue bill and show working-class voters, lured away from the party, that Democrats could change their lives for the better.

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Brigid Kennedy worked at The Week from 2021 to 2023 as a staff writer, junior editor and then story editor, with an interest in U.S. politics, the economy and the music industry.

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