The real deal

There came a moment during Bernie Sanders’ town hall meeting at Treasure Island on Friday when he blurted out a seemingly spontaneous line that was really anything but.

“Now, I don’t mind if billionaires denounce me, as they do all the time,” the Vermont U.S. senator said. “In fact, I welcome their hatred.”

The crowd cheered, and some may even have recognized that Sanders, a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president, was quoting a former chief executive, one who spoke in times strikingly similar to our own:

“We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace — business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

“They had begun to consider the government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that government by organized money is just as dangerous as government by organized mob.

“Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me — and I welcome their hatred.” said Franklin Delano Roosevelt on Oct. 31, 1936.

Sanders’ use of the line was sublime for a number of reasons, not least of which is the fact that it was a subtle upbraiding of fellow Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. The former secretary of state delivered her formal campaign kickoff speech on Roosevelt Island in New York on June 13, referencing FDR’s four freedoms (speech, worship, freedom from fear and from want).

But, as Sanders made clear in the course of a 51-minute address interrupted several times by a raucous crowd of several hundred people, he’s FDR’s real inheritor. Sanders has used his decades-long career in public life to try to complete what author Cass Sunstein has called FDR’s unfinished revolution. Whether Sanders is standing in the Burlington, Vt., City Hall (where he was mayor from 1981 to 1989), on the floor of the House or Senate (where he’s served since first being elected to federal office in 1991) or at the front of a Treasure Island ballroom, his message doesn’t change.

The right to an education? Sanders supports making public colleges and universities tuition-free, so as to encourage education even and especially among kids whose families may not be able to afford it.

The right to medical care? Sanders supports universal health care, a Medicare-for-all system similar to those used by most other industrialized countries.

The right to a decent house? According to The Nation, Sanders as mayor of Burlington refused to let developers tear down the city’s largest affordable-housing project, which was eventually converted to a tenant-owned complex and still stands today.

The right to a job and a decent wage? Sanders supports a massive infrastructure-building project that would put millions of people to work, and he wants Congress to boost the minimum wage to $15 per hour, just as the city of Los Angeles voted to do recently.

And the right to be secure in times of illness and old age? Sanders supports paid time off for new parents, paid sick leave, and an expansion of Social Security benefits and nutrition programs. “Our view is, nobody in America goes hungry,” he said flatly.

But it’s not going to be easy, he warned, railing against the “billionaire class” that controls the economy, Congress and, thanks to the infamous Citizens United decision, elections for public office. “We need a political revolution the day after the election … that makes it clear to the top 1 percent that they cannot have it all.”

Sanders says he’s never run a negative political ad in his long political career, and his stump speeches are exclusively devoted to issues. Even when directly invited by reporters to criticize Clinton, he demurs. Perhaps that’s because Sanders, a real-life FDR liberal, simply doesn’t have to.

Steve Sebelius is a Las Vegas Review-Journal political columnist who blogs at SlashPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter (@SteveSebelius) or reach him at 702-387-5276 or ssebelius@reviewjournal.com.