Robert Reich on Bernie Sanders' popularity...

[babylonsister]

https://www.facebook.com/RBReich?fref=nf

Robert Reich
5 hrs · Edited ·

“I don’t understand it,” a political reporter I’ve known for years told me this morning. “A new poll shows Sanders leading in Iowa. He’s leading in New Hampshire. It makes no sense.”

“It makes sense to me,” I said.

"Well then, explain it to me."

“Bernie is speaking about what’s true and important – the plundering of our economy and the pillaging of our democracy by big corporations and Wall Street and billionaires.”

“But that’s been going on for years,” he said. “Why now? Why are Americans suddenly waking up to it?”

“Because it’s reached a tipping point.” I explained. “There hasn’t been this much inequality of income, wealth, and political power since the Gilded Age of the 19th century. Americans are fed up.”

“But they’re disillusioned with politics. Few even vote. So why are they suddenly becoming involved now? How do you explain the crowds?” he asked.

“Because in Bernie they’re discovering someone who isn’t afraid to tell the truth or to propose big solutions.”

“Maybe you’re right,” said the reporter. “But I’ll believe it if he wins Iowa and New Hampshire.”

“Stay tuned,” I said.

What do you think?

[ibegurpard]

1. I think Robert Reich is a very smart man.

[stopwastingmymoney]

19. +1 nt

[trof]

22. Yep. And I think he's right.

[davidpdx]

56. +1

[Hortensis]

62. +1

[Uncle Joe]

2. Speaking truth to power is its own reward.

Thanks for the thread, babylonsister.

[arcane1]

3. Reich is, as usual, 100% correct.

I'd love to see him working in a Sanders cabinet. Maybe we'd see some improvement!

[trof]

23. Naw. He's too short.

If that's needed.

[jwirr]

34. Ironically he says that himself.

[Fawke Em]

51. But you need to be short to fit in a cabinet.

Ba-dah-bop. Ching.

(I'm only 5'1", so I can make the short jokes)

[Hortensis]

63. The visual's a hoot, thanks!

[Puzzledtraveller]

4. And we need to wake up friends and family too

the electorate at large, they are aware that things are not right but once you get outside into the mainstream they just do not know. They cannot connect the problems with the candidates, they can say yeah "Wall Street runs everything" then go right back to voting for a Clinton or a Bush. So I think early on Bernie is revealing the discontent and the fact that we know who is to blame but it has to go farther, much farther.

[WillyT]

5. HUGE K & R !!! - THANK YOU !!!

[hifiguy]

6. The good Professor

has hit the nail squarely on the head.

I hope to see him in a prominent role in the Sanders administration. He never fails to GET IT.

[Skwmom]

7. Good read. n/t

[appalachiablue]

8. K & R. Robert Reich gets it as ever. Go Bernie Go!

[Armstead]

11. Great POster

[appalachiablue]

13. Perfect for Bernie. It's pinned here in the first link with all the banners, avatars and logos.

[DrBulldog]

29. That's it! I knew I had seen Bernie from sometime before ...

... I saw him back in 1917! He used be Sam Sanders!!!

[deutsey]

47. I love that!

[appalachiablue]

48. Great poster it is and just right with Bernie!

Go Bernie Go!
~ If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace. ~ Thomas Paine.

[gregcrawford]

50. James Mongomery Flagg is cheering!

[appalachiablue]

53. A fine artist Flagg was in that great age of illustration. Another 1917 with French Liberty Cap-

[L0oniX]

9. K & R

[cantbeserious]

10. No Citizen Need Settle For The Lesser Of Two Corporate Evils - Go Bernie Go

eom

[ybbor]

57. I still love your posts!

Bern baby Bern!

[fbc]

12. I think he made up this poliical reporter

sounds fake, unlike Bernie

[Armstead]

14. Nah...probably a real conversation, but rewritten so kind of artifucial

[Fawke Em]

52. Could be a composite of a few reporters.

In fact, it probably is.

[Ed Suspicious]

15. Reich used to be a champion for the third way so I'm always a little skeptical of him, but his

reporter friend is beltway clueless.

[in_cog_ni_to]

21. Have you seen his movie? Inequality for All

Reich changed his tune a long time ago. He's one of the good guys. He's on our side.

inequalityforall.com/

His movie was on Netflix for a long time or it can be watched online.

[DrBulldog]

30. Good one!

That is what everyone has been saying - we've all seen this guy before, long ago ... he used to be Albert Sanders!!!

[jwirr]

37. In the Netflix document by him he says that he and

Bill were in college together in England and they were friends. When Bill was elected he appointed Robert Reich as Labor Secretary.

Robert was very excited about the appointment because he thought that NOW he could do some of the things that they had discussed while in college.

He goes on to say that did not happen. Bill had other ideas so Robert never got the chance to put his own ideas into practice.

He is now supporting Bernie.

[ErikJ]

16. Bernie gives concrete facts and answers for all the specific problems. The rest dont mention

most of them and if they do just dance around the topic with vague answers. You know theyre bullshitting.

[zentrum]

17. Hopefully Reich

….will be in Bernie's Cabinet.

[appalachiablue]

25. +1. Have a Bernie cupcake folks, yum! Time for a bit of celebrating. Go Bernie Go!

[zentrum]

28. Delish!

[Beartracks]

58. lol @ your Berned cupcakes! n/t

[appalachiablue]

60. They were delish and went fast! Just had the last one with lunch, yum.

[NJCher]

72. thanks for the photos

I got a good chuckle out of them. Did you think that idea up yourself?

Clever.

You should post in Cooking & Baking; I know they would get a laugh.


Cher

[appalachiablue]

75. I wish. The Cupcake Update was posted in the BSG yesterday. They were for a Va. party event.

As you suggested, I just posted the goodies in the Baking & Cooking group. *DUer Zentrum made off with the box! but left one, thank goodness. Teasing.

I used to enjoy making banana nut bread, peach cobbler, cranberry and lemon-poppy seed scones and a fantastic King's Cake for Mardi Gras. Alas I've lapsed but might return to baking a bit one day.

[Dustlawyer]

18. The more Americans hear him, the more his supporters grow.

My biggest worry is the underhanded tricks they will use to stop him. He is fighting for regaining control over our government, plain and simple! In the past they bought the bills they wanted and got a great return on investment at our expense. By fighting for publicly Funded Elections he is, in effect, fighting to remove their control. They will go all out

We need to have exit polling of our own to catch the vote stealing that WILL take place!

[appalachiablue]

36. Yep, they are assembling now to really begin taking Bernie down. But we must persevere

in this critical time. The powers will make sure to close off any similar challengers like Bernie the next time. We are in crisis as our middle class, economic stability and social fabric are deteriorating rapidly as Bernie realizes. The country can't go on this way.
Agree that in this key election widespread voter suppression enabled by the SC's gutting of the VRA in 2013 and corruption of electronic voting machines will be a real and dangerous factor.

We must continue to build support for Bernie, and remain steady, unified and determined in the upcoming fight. Then begin to create a real political revolution and reform to change the course of this great country. The way I see it anyway.

~ If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace. ~ Thomas Paine.

[Dustlawyer]

40. Absolutely!

A Republican Internet security expert has pointed out where Rove's IT guy was connected to the group in TN that hacked by inserting a "King" computer in the vote reporting loop. This computer could pose as the vote tabulating computer and receive the actual votes. It then can change the results and pose as the precinct computers and report the false vote totals to the official tabulating computer. For two million dollars, according to this expert, you could rig the election and pick your POTUS!

This is a fight for control of our own government! The PTB control it now through campaign contributions, but they have several other things, like you mention, the VRA, electronic vote hacking, and constant propaganda over their media. This is more than getting Bernie elected, WE have a lot more work to do, but we do have to get him elected first.

[JDPriestly]

66. It is insane that the companies that own the voting machines can claim trade secrets

with regard to how they run their machines.

It is insane that we do not require a hand-countable back-up vote for every vote that enters a voting machine. I think that the voting machines should produce two receipts. Both would show that the voter has voted and how. The first receipt would be given to the voter. The second to the local registrar's office and be available should the outcome of the vote be very close and need to be counted by hand.

[Dustlawyer]

68. The PTB planned it this way and politicians from either Party do not complain and

risk losing campaign contributions. We the people will have to demand that this be changed or they will screw us every time! This is a war over control of our government! None of this is a mistake or accidental. The media do not discuss it because they own the media too.

This will be our best chance to get control of our country back, we must not waste the opportunity! We must draw attention to the problem and demand it be changed to protect the integrity of our elections. We need to set up exit polling so that they know we are watching. There is a reason the networks stopped doing exit polling and it is not because of the expense as they claim!

Feel the Bern!

[JDPriestly]

71. Yes. Just one more reason to vote for someone who is not sucking from the teats of

the corporate cows.

One more reason to support Bernie!

[ymetca]

73. You would also need

to be able too look up and verify your post-tabulation vote, by inputting into a website a random-generated key code from the bottom of your receipt. That way the code can only bring up your actual vote, making it difficult to present you with a fake alternative that makes it appear your vote was tabulated correctly. In other words, each ballot would have an accompanying key code that only your ticket matches. It would be the only way vote hacking could actually be caught in a reasonable amount of time. Then we'd have a quick and accurate way to do "exit polling" to see if the official reported count was way off, and provide evidence that a recount was needed.

[Babel_17]

20. Robert Reich has a way with words

[Mr. Evil]

24. When it comes to political movements Americans usually feel too disenfranchised to bother.

With the emergence of Bernie Sanders they are slowly awakening from their apathy. Now you have a candidate that isn't a multi-millionaire, isn't in the pocket of Wall Street, Big Pharma or Big Oil. Even though he is Jewish he doesn't automatically sing the praises of the almighty Israel. He is honest, forthright and has a voting record to prove it. He isn't perfect but, he's the closest to perfection we've had in decades.

So please, when the time comes, go vote. And make sure that vote is cast for Bernie Sanders. Don't be lazy. Don't be afraid and definitely don't forget! It really is that important!

An excerpt from a recent article:
“I’m proud to be Jewish,” the Independent from Vermont – and candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination – responded Thursday at a press breakfast hosted by the Monitor. Though, he added, “I’m not particularly religious.”

As a child, Sanders said, being Jewish taught him “in a very deep way what politics is about.”

“A guy named Adolf Hitler won an election in 1932,” the senator said. “He won an election, and 50 million people died as a result of that election in World War II, including 6 million Jews. So what I learned as a little kid is that politics is, in fact, very important.”

[Hiraeth]

26. I think I am watching history being made. Again. It is all very exciting, watching it all unfold.

[840high]

27. k/r - today i spotted 4 cars

with Bernie stickers!

[navarth]

31. If you saw mine

it would be 5!

And my wife's....6!

[840high]

39. Great. + mine!!!!

[Fawke Em]

55. And mine is 7 or 8 or 9 or 10, if you count my neighbors!

?v=1435252877

[Warren DeMontague]

32. Americans want a president who will give them carefully crafted, poll-tested sound bites that dont

actually mean anything!

[DrBulldog]

33. Every millennial should go back and watch all of Reich's videos.

The millennial generation would then learn - in an entertaining fashion - for the first time why CIVICS and ECONOMICS was so important to learn back in the 50s and 60s when America last had a thriving middle class.

[Capn Sunshine]

35. I think Reich is right there at the crest of the wave

Being an adjunct professor at UC Berkeley, he only need reach out a hand and he will touch a progressive.

His keen sense of the growing outrage of the tattered remains of the middle class is a touchstone that journos should use more often.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

38. I think the reporter should be fired.

[Admiral Loinpresser]

41. Secretary of Treasury, Robert Reich, 2017! n/t

[DirkGently]

42. Reich he is. n/t

[Eric J in MN]

43. Bernie Sanders can win Iowa and New Hampshire and lose the nomination.

I support Sanders, but he's trailing Hillary Clinton nationally by 10 points:

"Mrs. Clinton is getting support from 37 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters, with Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who is running in the Democratic contest, getting 27 percent."

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/09/10/hillary-clintons-support-erodes-in-national-poll/

[lonestarnot]

45. That is why it is up to you to work to inform everyone at every opportunity.

[Romulox]

64. Polls suggest that Hillary can win the nomination, and lose the General Election. nt

[JDPriestly]

70. That will change. Bernie was trailing in New Hampshire and Iowa until the voters in those

states got to know him.

The DNC is limiting thbecause they don't want the American people to get to know Bernie.

I think Biden is being pressured to run because they hope that Biden's personality will win a sympathy vote from Bernie.

I think that the powers that be in the Democratic Party have no idea how very unhappy the people of America are with the fact that we have technology that makes our work superfluous in many cases but that the economic bounty that is gained by that technology has gone almost entirely to the top 1%.

I don't think that the bigwigs realize how a person's life is damaged when a person loses a job, has to get by on wages from fewer hours or has to work an irregular, unpredictable schedule to save the bosses money. I don't think they understand that the very rich and all of us are happy about the great new technologies that have replaced so many middle class jobs but that the wealth created by those technologies has almost all flowed to the very richest Americans.

Too many ordinary Americans lost their jobs and homes thanks to criminal banking and mortgage company actions.

Too many ordinary Americans lost their jobs, too many towns lost their industry and tax bases, all because of a trade policy that sounds great to the top 1% and the politicians but has brought disaster to ordinary Americans.

Too many ordinary Americans see the results of climate change in their back yards. In Washington, California and other states, huge forest fires have ignited making the air unbreatheable, ruining scenic vacation and weekend refuges and Washington, D.C., even Sacramento, California have done nothing about it.

And then there is Citizens United which, coupled with racism, is preventing America from progressing, from even hearing about new, good ideas for coping with our many problems.

We saw during the Bush era how supposed foreign policy crises were pushed on us as needing so much urgent attention that our needs and our problems, like not being able to educate or provide reasonably priced good child care for our children, like pensions for seniors, like really universal health care, amenities people in other developed nations take for granted, could not be met.

We are sick of hearing that meme. America is not going to solve the world's problems. We have been trying to do so since the end of WWII, and we have not succeeded. We need a policy in which we work more with other countries and less against them. That won't solve all the world's problems, but it will allow us a breather to solve some of ours.

Yes. We have really reached a tipping point.

Sanders has kept in touch with the American people while the pundits and politicians riled them up over what they thought we should be "concerned" about. They were wrong.

Bernie's policies are just right for this moment in history.

That is why he is gaining momentum so quickly.

Judging form the Colbert interview of Biden last night, it appears that the status quo folks want to push him to run. Hillary is not fighting their fight successfully so now Biden is going to be raised as the banner of the business as usual crowd.

It could work, but I am inclined to think it will not. In the entire interview, there was not one word about new policy or how to deal with the problems the Berrnie campaign has brought to the fore.

Biden is a really nice guy.

But he would have to distance himself from the credit card companies who have supported his career as well as from the Obama administration's policies on health care, on education, on war, on so many issues, that I just don't think he should run.

If he breaks too clearly from the Obama administration, he looks disloyal. If he sticks to the policies of the Obama administration, he is not offering the new ideas we need to deal with the issues that the Obama administration has bungled -- like too big to fail banks, like people without health care, like reforming public education without privatizing it, like making sure our kids get to go to college and don't have to join the military to go for free, like the environment and the really aggressive programs we need to prevent the extinction of our species, etc.

Feel the Bern!

[Scootaloo]

76. Last month he was trailing by thirty. I'm not worried in the least.

[Enthusiast]

44. K&R! This post should have hundreds of recommendations!

[deutsey]

46. I'm glad to see Bernie clearly articulating

what many people have been feeling for quite a while but that has been locked out of (or manipulated by) the media and political establishments.

The fact that this "political reporter" is so baffled by the support Bernie has indicates to me just how clueless he, his colleagues, and those whom they cover really are.

However, as much as I support Bernie, I have a hard time believing someone like him has a fair chance in our tilted electoral process to win.

Even so, he has my vote until he is no longer running.

[JDPriestly]

65. The pundits and policians are baffled because they have not been listening to Breakfast

with Bernie on Thom Hartmann for all these years.

They have no idea that many of us know Bernie so well, the heart and soul of Bernie, because we have listened to him on the radio or the internet.

The pundits and politicians think they are THE LOOP when in fact for years now, they have been OUT OF THE LOOP.

They just listen to themselves, to each other, to the noise they make about stupid stuff. They've been doing that since I can remember.

Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders has been talking to listeners and to Thom Hartmann for years -- about the issues.

Bernie did not need a listening tour at the beginning of his run because HE HAS BEEN LISTENING TO THOM HARTMANN'S CALLERS for years now. Years.

This is quite a funny, an ironically funny situation.

The wages of hubris and self-satisfaction, of deafness, of making no effort to listen to the American people, are finally being paid to this arrogant, deaf, insensitive bunch that run our media and our government.

We need more liberal, really liberal radio.

Thanks to the internet, we can have it.

[gregcrawford]

49. The biggest risk to Bernie's success may be...

... the pandemic of AD/OS (Attention Deficit/Oh, Shiny!)

The current level of enthusiasm cannot merely be maintained, it must expand exponentially to overcome the ever-intensifying malice and underhanded dirty tricks that supporters of Her Eminence will employ as the primaries draw closer. And then there's the mindless savagery and despicable treachery of Republicans in the General Election to deal with.

I believe, and hope with all my heart, that Bernie can win it all, but when evil greed is confronted with honest decency, the proverbial substance hits the fan with a resounding splat.

Get ready to get dirty.

[Douglas Carpenter]

54. knr

[MynameisBlarney]

59. What do I think?

I think the nation is about to Feel The Bern!

He's gonna steamroller the competition.

[JDPriestly]

61. Bernie will be our next president.

[sabrina 1]

67. Anyone who is puzzled by this should not be a journalist. Reich gets it, millions get it, except

for those inside the Corporate Bubble AND those who don't WANT to get it!

[Betty Karlson]

69. The reporter's failing to understand is very telling in itself:

aren't journalists supposed to talk to people other than the establishment, and find things out for themselves?

[SoapBox]

74. K & R!

And to so many of the great replies to the OP.

Bernie just needs to keep talking!