When you see Bernie Sanders in person for the first time, as I did Sunday, a few things stand out. First, the man is voluble. At a town hall in Seabrook, on a beautiful late-summer afternoon, Sanders spoke for well over an hour in a packed, uncomfortably warm school gymnasium — and that didn’t include the Q&A session.
Another surprise: Sanders is funnier than you might expect. In Seabrook, he got some laughs when he rolled up his shirtsleeves and offered real-time commentary.
“I started off with a jacket,” Sanders reminded the crowd. “Got rid of that. Sleeves are going up. I’ll probably take my shirt off in a few minutes.”
Then, amid whoops of approval, Sanders backtracked. “Nah, I don’t want to do that,” he said, flexing his arms like a bodybuilder. “Don’t want to embarrass the young guys here.”
Also noteworthy: Sanders is as aggressive a cultural warrior as he is an economic populist.
“They just love families — they spend their nights worrying about families,” Sanders said of the Republican candidates for president, his voice dripping with disdain. “Well, all of you know what they mean by family values. And what they mean is that women in America should not have the right to control their own bodies. I disagree!”
That yielded a thunderous standing ovation. But Sanders wasn’t done.
“And what they also mean, when they talk about ‘family values,’ is our gay brothers and sisters should not have the right to get married. I disagree!”
Another ovation.
Still, that economic populism is Sanders’ claim to fame. And in both Seabrook and Portsmouth — where he opened a new campaign office — it constituted the core of his message.
Here’s a representative exhortation, involving the Koch brothers’ plan to spend massive amounts of money in the 2016 elections: “When you have one family, the second wealthiest family in this country, spending more money than either of the two major political parties … my friends, you’re not talking about democracy. You’re talking about oligarchy! And that we will not allow to take place!”
For Sanders, apparently, foreign policy is something of an afterthought. At that event in Seabrook, he spoke about the topic for roughly 5 minutes — saying he’d opposed the second Iraq war, partly due to concerns that it would destabilize the Middle East, and that he backs President Obama’s deal with Iran.
Sanders didn’t take questions in Seabrook, but in Portsmouth, I asked him: How would you deal with the rise of ISIS, the war in Syria, and the refugee crisis in the Middle East and Europe?
“It goes without saying, in terms of the refugee crisis, this is a horrendous humanitarian crisis,” Sanders replied.
“I think the world has a moral responsibility to do everything we can to help those people get their feet on the ground,” he added. “And that means that Europe has got to react. It means the United States has got to react, it means also that very wealthy gulf countries like Saudi Arabia and the [United Arab Emirates] and Kuwait have got to react as well.”
And what about ISIS? Might military action by the U.S. be warranted?
“In my view, ISIS is a barbaric organization. ISIS has got to be defeated,” Sanders said. “But it cannot be the United States alone that does that … ISIS is bordering Saudi Arabia. You got the UAE there, you got Kuwait there, you got Turkey there. Those countries are going to have to lead effort in the fight for the soul of Islam.”
One final point: When Sanders speaks to his adoring supporters, he uses some some artfully subtle rhetoric — casting himself and his supporters as revolutionaries, while simultaneously insisting that his ideas aren’t really challenging at all.
“What we are trying to do in this campaign actually has never been done in the modern history of this country,” Sanders said in Portsmouth. “And what we are trying to do is not just elect a candidate to be president of the United States; that’s hard enough. What we are trying to do is make a political revolution.
Then, just a few minutes later: “There is nothing that I am talking about in this campaign which is outside of mainstream ideas. These are the ideas that the American people want to hear, and want to see implemented!”
It’s a tricky balance. But judging from the surprising lead Sanders currently enjoys in New Hampshire, it’s working remarkably well.
Watch Bernie Sanders Take Questions From The Press Sunday:
