[ "It is not good enough just to elect Joe Biden. Weve got to
continue the movement in this country for transformative change."]
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PROGRESSIVES HAVE GOOD CHANCE TO MOVE A 'RECEPTIVE' BIDEN TO THE
LEFT, SAYS SANDERS   [[link removed]]

 

Julia Conley
June 10, 2020
Common Dreams
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_ "It is not good enough just to elect Joe Biden. We've got to
continue the movement in this country for transformative change." _

Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders shake hands
ahead of the third Democratic primary debate of the 2020 presidential
campaign season in Houston on September 12, 2019., (Photo: Frederic J.
Brown / AFP via Getty Images)

 

Sen. Bernie Sanders told _The New Yorker_ Tuesday that he believes
former Vice President Joe Biden can be pushed to the left on a number
of issues if he wins the 2020 general election.

In an interview 
[[link removed]]titled
"Bernie Sanders Is Not Done Fighting," the Vermont independent senator
refused to "sugarcoat" his political differences with his former
primary opponent, who is now the presumptive Democratic nominee
challenging President Donald Trump in November. During the 2020
primary debates, Biden claimed
[[link removed]] Sanders'
plan to expand Medicare to all Americans was not "realistic" and said
the country is "not looking for a revolution" 
[[link removed]]weeks
before the coronavirus pandemic revealed the economic precarity in
which millions of people live in the United States.

However, Sanders expressed hope that the joint task forces created by
his and Biden's campaigns could help push Biden to embrace policies
that prioritize the needs of working and marginalized Americans.

Whether Biden does so, Sanders said, will determine whether the former
vice president can effect meaningful change during his potential
presidency. 

"It is not good enough just to elect Joe Biden," Sanders told the
magazine. "We've got to continue the movement in this country for
transformative change, and to understand that we are way, way, way
behind many other industrialized countries in providing for the needs
of working families."

The need for Biden to push a more progressive policy agenda should now
be apparent to former skeptics in the midst of the ongoing coronavirus
pandemic, suggested Sanders. The public health and economic crisis
caused by the outbreak has so far pushed more than 16 million
Americans off their employer-sponsored health insurance, according
to 
[[link removed]]the
Economic Policy Institute, and has caused an explosion in demand at
food banks across the U.S. as many unemployed people began struggling
to afford basic necessities after missing just one or two paychecks.

"What we are seeing right now, the great economic message of today, is
that, when you live paycheck to paycheck and you miss a few paychecks,
a few weeks of work, your family is suddenly now in economic
desperation. Literally. Struggling to put food on the table and pay
the rent," Sanders said. "So we've got to rethink."

"The fight continues for a Medicare for All single-payer program, and
that becomes especially obvious when you have seen in recent months
millions of people losing their jobs," the senator added. "So I'm
going to continue that fight."

Sanders said Biden has been "much more receptive to sitting down and
talking with me and other progressives than we have seen in the past,"
a reference to former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. 

"I think it is fair to say that our relationship with Biden is a
stronger relationship," he told _The New Yorker._

According to Sanders, Biden has expressed a desire to be "as strong as
possible" in confronting the climate crisis, after facing criticism
[[link removed]] during
the primary for failing to call for a ban on fracking and to set an
ambitious target for eliminating fossil fuels from the U.S. economy.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sunrise Movement co-founder
Varshini Prakash, both of whom endorsed Sanders during the primary,
are members of the two campaigns' joint task force
[[link removed]] on
the climate crisis.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), a former Sanders surrogate who
sponsored the Medicare for All Act of 2019, and labor leader Sara
Nelson are members of the task forces on healthcare and the economy,
respectively.

"There are six task forces at work, literally, as we speak, between
his people and people who supported me, hammering out, or trying to
hammer out, agreements on the economy, healthcare, immigration reform,
criminal-justice reform, education, and climate change, and we'll see
what the fruits of those discussions are," Sanders told _The New
Yorker._ "But Joe has been open to having his people sit down with
some of the most progressive folks in America, and that's a good
sign."

_Julia Conley is a staff writer for Common Dreams._

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