‘ This is a system that cannot be defended…’
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) In a state that Hillary Clinton carried by only 136,386 votes four years ago, current Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders may have just tossed out 91,000.
Sanders told a local Denver station that those working in the fossil-fuels energy sector, including oil and natural gas, should be ready to transition if he is elected president.
He claimed, however, that their career changes would somehow be subsidized at taxpayer expense, without offering specific proposals as to how he would achieve this while also investing trillions in alternative energy and other expensive promises.
“Those workers are not my enemy,” Sanders claimed. “It’s not their fault that climate change is threatening the planet.”
He promised to spend billions more to provide them with five years of income, job retraining, education and health care.
“We’re not going to push them aside,” Sanders said. “We’re going to protect them.”
Sanders also struggled to provided strong defenses of other policies, including his Medicare for All proposal, which two prominent Colorado Democrats—Sen. Michael Bennet and former Gov. John Hickenlooper—have both come out against.
Both flirted with presidential runs themselves, and Hickenlooper is currently running to unseat Republican Sen. Cory Gardner.
“You’ve given me the names of two people who don’t support it,” Sanders said. “You haven’t told me about the polling that says that the overwhelming majority of Democrats do support it. … This is a system that cannot be defended.”
Many fear that Sanders’s uncompromising, hardline stance not only could cost Democrats a shot at the Oval Office, but also could weaken their hand in efforts to reclaim the Senate and defend their House majority.
But Sanders shrugged off questions about his electability and dodged concerns over whether his risky proposals put him outside the mainstream.
“Well, then you’re talking about obviously a very, very dangerous moment in American history,” Sanders said. “I believe that we are going to defeat President Trump and I believe there is an excellent chance that I will be the next President of the United States.”