Bernie Sanders Keeps Talking About A Third Party

The Democratic Party’s future leadership is in such disarray that The Hill was able to list 43 prominent members of the party who have already floated their names for a 2020 presidential run. The fact that The Hill was able make a credible list that large shows that the currently leaderless Democratic Party has no idea what direction it wants to go in.

One person who has a clear idea about what he wants to do is Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Yet even though Sanders is an independent, his post-2016 goal is a complete transformation of the Democratic Party:

“Right now, what I am trying to do is to transform the Democratic Party. You know, starting a third party, it is easy to start it. It is a lot more difficult to make it into a strong reality. That’s just an historical fact.”

While Sanders mentioned that starting a third party wasn’t easy, the socialist Senator also refused to rule out the possibility of creating a third party if the Democratic Party resisted his efforts:

“But I do want to also say to you as somebody who knows, I think, more about this than anybody in Congress: Doing third-party politics is not so easy. If you think, ‘Oh boy, we don’t like the Democrats. We need to start a third party, and wow, in a couple of years.’ Maybe. You know? Maybe. But that has not been the history of the United States.”

Sanders’ efforts in California should be making establishment Democrats very nervous. Sanders backers have taken over the state party, and he’s now pointing to California as an example of the type of transformation he wants to make on the national level:

“Sanders pointed out that in California, ‘progressives are gradually taking over the Democratic Party.’ He says that that is what he is trying to do now, by working with the Democratic Party. Sanders admitted that he might not succeed if the resistance to progressive ideals is too strong within the party, but he feels it’s the best chance right now that he has to save the planet.”

Sanders’ extreme vision would sink the Democratic Party. Yet while a comically large number of Democrats are talked about as 2020 candidates, right now Sanders is the driving force in the Democratic Party.