Bernie Sanders says 'it would be hard to suggest' voters were enthusiastic about Hillary Clinton

(Image credit: Theo Wargo/Getty Images)

published 27 November 2016

In a wide-ranging conversation with Chi-Raq director Spike Lee, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) argued that Hillary Clinton lost the election to Donald Trump because she could not replicate the enthusiasm President Obama inspired or assuage voters' "economic angst":

Sanders: [In 2016] it would be hard to suggest that the people of this country were enthusiastic about the Clinton campaign. There was not the energy we have seen in the Obama campaign, and what ended up happening was voter turnout was low. She won the black community overwhelmingly, but turnout was low. She lost a lot of white, working-class people. That's just the fact. [...] A lot of people who voted for Donald Trump did not vote for his racist statements, his statements on immigration, on women. They didn’t support that. But what Trump tapped into is a lot of economic angst and anger and frustration.Lee: You think people can separate the racist and sexist comments he made from his policies?Sanders: Yes. I think what they are saying is, "I need a job, my kid needs to go to college, Mr Trump is promising that. I think he will probably not carry through on his racist, sexist policies. Let's vote for the economic issues." That’s what I think happened. [The Guardian]

Sanders also indicated Saturday he shares some of Trump's economic priorities. The senator released a statement announcing forthcoming legislation aimed at stopping outsourcing in a manner almost identical to what Trump proposed on the campaign trail: American companies that move overseas would be prohibited from receiving government contracts and subject to an "outsourcing tax" equal to 35 percent of profits or 100 percent of money saved by outsourcing jobs.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.