The left loves to accuse Donald Trump of being a ‘threat to democracy,’ but the Democratic Party has a complicated history of interfering with the democratic primary process.
When Bernie Sanders ran for president in 2016 and 2020, the party establishment ensured he did not win the nomination despite his popularity. In 2024, Kamala Harris was crowned Joe Biden’s replacement without receiving a single vote for the post. Couple the lack of transparency with the left’s obsession with identity politics and the Democrats are in the midst of a major identity crisis without a clear path forward.
Someone who seems to agree with this take? Sanders himself, who made an appearance on Andrew Schulz’s Flagrant podcast this week and did not hold back. Ana Kasparian, host and producer for The Young Turks, was a Sanders supporter in 2016 and 2020 and joined Megyn on Thursday’s show to discuss why the Vermont senator understands the problems Democrats face better than most.
On ‘Threats to Democracy’
Sanders joined Schulz and his co-host Akaash Singh for a wide-ranging 90-minute sit-down that was released Monday. Schulz argued that, contrary to popular claims, the Democratic Party is the “threat to democracy” because it has been robbing its constituents of actively participating in the democratic process for years.
“Over the last four elections, Democrats, we felt that we didn’t have a say on who could be president,” Schulz said. “We talk a lot about the Republicans being autocrats and oligarchs and taking over democracy. But from the Democrat perspective – and I’m a lifelong Democrat – I felt like the Democratic Party completely removed the democratic process from its constituents. And I think they need to have some accountability of that.”
The progressive senator agreed, adding, “no argument here.”
Singh posed the question another way. “Could we not also say, ostensibly, there hasn’t been a fair primary for the Democrats since 2008, are they not also a threat to democracy,” he asked.
And Sanders was comfortable conceding the point. “Yes… Fair enough,” he said. “I’m not going to argue with that point, and that’s why I’m proudly an Independent.”
Kasparain said this candidness suggests “Bernie is back” and aware that “you can’t really play nice with the Democratic establishment and expect to get your policy priorities passed or expect them to help you out in whatever your agenda might be.”
On the Dem Elites
As she explained, the powers that be in the Democrat establishment used identity politics “to crush” Sanders in 2016, which is also something Singh and Schulz raised with the senator.
When Singh asked if pro-Hillary Clinton super PACs were responsible for branding his so-called “Bernie Bros” coalition “racist” and “misogynistic,” Sanders blamed the party itself. “No, it was the Democratic establishment,” he said. “We had a lot of young people. We had people of color and, you know, they create this kind of myth with the help of the corporate media and all that stuff.”
Schulz said that parallels a narrative that emerged in the 2024 election once Harris stepped in. “The podcast space, which the Democrats largely avoided, they feel had some influence in the election, and they started to label us the ‘podcast bros’ and said that we were sexist and we were racist and bigoted,” he noted. “It’s almost like it’s the exact same strategy to get you out of there.”
Sanders concurred. “Yeah, that’s what the liberal elite… does,” he said.
On Identity Politics
Perhaps that is why he was quick to name identity politics as one of the biggest problems on the left today. “And then you get to what we call identity politics. ‘You’re black; you’re wonderful; you’re tremendous.’ ‘You’re gay; you’re the greatest human being on Earth’… Rather than saying… ‘You’re gay. That’s fine. Who cares? But what do you stand for,'” he said. “Is every gay person brilliant, and wonderful, and great? No, of course. Everybody is a human being.”
That is why, he said, the left needs to move away from identity and back to issues people actually care about. “So, the issue is what you stand for, which gets you back to… class politics,” Sanders explained. “Which side are you on: Are you going to stand with working families? Are you going to raise the minimum wage to a living wage, or not? Are you going to fight to guarantee health care to all people, or not? Are you going to demand that the wealthiest people start paying their fair share of taxes, or not?”
“Those are the issues, he continued. “And no one cares what color you are, what your gender is, etc, etc.”
A Winning Strategy?
Kasparian said that frank talk from Sanders is what ingratiated him to his supporters – herself included – back in 2015 and 2016, and she believes it represents “a winning brand of politics” today. “Americans want to be left alone when it comes to their personal lives,” she noted. “They don’t want to be judged because they’re living in a traditional conservative household; they don’t want to be judged if they happen to be gay and want to marry a partner of the same sex. They just want the government out of their personal lives entirely.”
“But there is a role for the government, [and] the role for the government is to protect the American people, not only from criminals, not only from foreign threats, but also from corporate greed,” she added. “And that was the message of Bernie Sanders’ campaigns, and the corporate Democrats loathed him. So, they used identity politics, cynically, to destroy his campaigns and his possibilities of winning.”
In Kasparian’s view, the 2024 election illustrated just how fed up the American people are with identity politics and, in turn, Democrats who promote them. Perhaps that is why Sanders’ sidekick in his “Fighting Oligarchy” tour, progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), has shed the pronouns from her social media bios and, as Kasparian said, “shed a lot of that rhetoric.”
If she has aspirations for higher office, Kasparian believes Ocasio-Cortez needs to do some soul-searching. “If AOC is willing to self-reflect and realize, Okay, I was pushing for things that most Americans, including Democrats, weren’t into, and I need to go back to the bread and butter issues. Great. I think that is a good way to kind of move forward for Democrats,” she concluded. “But she needs a long runway to kind of rebrand herself as an economic populist, similar to who Bernie Sanders is.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Kasparian by tuning in to episode 1,078 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.