Bernie Sanders is known today as perhaps the most important leader of the American left. It was not always this way.
Long before his 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns helped shift the Democratic Party to the left, the Vermont senator was a lone voice in American politics — the rare politician willing to call himself a “socialist” in a sharply defined country by his opposition to the Soviet Union during the time. the Cold War.
Sanders was born on September 8, 1941, in Brooklyn, New York, to a working-class Jewish family. His father was a Polish immigrant. He attended James Madison High School, where he was an athletic star, and graduated in 1959, eight years before his current colleague, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
He later attended the University of Chicago, where he was arrested for protesting segregation in Chicago public schools. He graduated in 1964, spent some time on an Israeli kibbutz, and moved to Vermont in 1968.
From Mayor of Burlington to Longest-Serving Independent in Congressional History
Sanders’ first foray into politics took place well outside the Democratic Party: in the 1970s, he ran repeatedly for governor and the U.S. Senate under the banner of the socialist Liberty Union party.
His first political victory came in 1981, when he was elected mayor of Burlington – Vermont’s largest city – by just 10 votes. He would serve four terms, easily winning re-election each time.
Sanders in his office at Burlington City Hall in 1985. Donna Light/Newsday RM via Getty Images
After finishing second in a three-way race for Vermont’s only House of Representatives seat in 1988, he was elected to Congress in 1990 with significant Democratic support. Despite this, he retained his independent status and would later earn the title of longest-serving independent in congressional history.
Sanders has always been an avowed socialist and outspokenly defended this position even when the Soviet Union still existed.
“I’m a socialist and everyone knows it,” Sanders said in 1990. “They also understand that my brand of democratic socialism has nothing to do with authoritarian communism.”
Sanders during a 1998 House hearing. Douglas Graham/Congressional Quarterly/Getty Images
Sanders was elected to the Senate in 2006 and was re-elected by overwhelming majorities in 2012 and 2018.
The 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns
In April 2015, Sanders took perhaps the most significant step of his career: announcing that he would run for president, challenging former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the 2016 Democratic nomination under the slogan “A future to believe in”.
Building on a platform that included Medicare for All, fighting income inequality, and enacting campaign finance reform, Sanders helped awaken a movement on the American left that persists to this day, inspiring the rise of from figures like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Although he lost his hard-fought primary to Clinton that year, he demonstrated that there was a strong appetite for economic proposals more to the left than those long offered by the Democratic Party. In the years between his 2016 and 2020 campaigns, several other potential Democratic presidential candidates have embraced Sanders’ proposals, including Medicare for All.
In 2020, Sanders ran again, ultimately finishing second to now-President Joe Biden in the primary. He dropped out of college on April 8, 2020, about a month after the COVID-19 pandemic began.
Who is Sanders today – and what he is fighting for
Since his 2020 campaign, Sanders has taken on a more institutional role in the U.S. Senate.
During the first two years of Biden’s presidency, he served as chairman of the Budget Committee, a position that gave him a key role in crafting Biden’s domestic agenda, including the ill-fated spending bill social “Build Back Better” which laid the foundations. for the Inflation Reduction Act.
Since 2023 – a period of divided government – Sanders has served as chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, a perch he used to take against corporations while pushing for proposals such as a 32-hour work week and a $17 federal budget. minimum wage.
He has also been particularly vocal against Israel since the October 7 Hamas attacks, calling for conditions on U.S. aid to the country and voting against bills that do not include those conditions.
Sanders is worth at least $2 million and owns three homes, according to numerous reports. Much of that wealth comes from book sales, a frequent source of outside income for high-level lawmakers.
In 2022, for example, Sanders nearly doubled his income from royalties on his latest book, “It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism.”
“I wrote a best-selling book,” he says told the New York Times in 2019. “If you write a bestseller, you can also become a millionaire.”
The 82-year-old Vermont senator, the second-oldest U.S. senator behind 90-year-old Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, has not yet indicated whether he will run again in 2024.
If he chooses to run, he will essentially be a lock for re-election. If he chooses to retire, several candidates could seek to replace him, including Democratic Rep. Becca Balint.
businessinsider
