By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
I decided to write this post — a little off-topic for Thanksgivng, I grant — simply because I was out walking and it suddenly occurred to me that I didn’t know how many town halls Senator Bernie Sanders had done since the 2016 election. Hence this inventory. The object of inquiry, the “town hall,” is a little fuzzy round the edges, but at least one key element is “constituent participation with a politician,” generally in the form of questions. To this I would add that the town hall must be labeled a “Town Hall,” be national in scope, and that the audience be large. (This rules out book tours, rallies, and small town halls designed for the state and local levels.)
The inventory wasn’t all that easy to do; I suspect the only complete listing is on Sander’s Facebook page, but (a) Facebook and (b) not doing the Facebook infinite scroll, sorry. So I went with the Google. For each town hall I give the online venue (including a link to the complete video), the location, and some descriptive material, often in the form of represenative Sanders quotes. (“Representative” is not hard, because Sanders is relentlessly on message.) Where available, I give press releases from Sanders’ office. After the inventory, I’ll draw some conclusions.
Herewith the list of Sanders Town Halls, in reverse chronological order.
(1) Climate Change Solutions: December 2, 2018 (to come)
Press Release: Announcment
(2) CEOs vs Workers: June 28, 2018
Press Release: Announcement
Online venue: Live stream with media partners
Location: Washington, DC
From Jacobin:
Monday night, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders hosted a live-streamed town hall with five low-wage workers — one each from Amazon, American Airlines, Disney, McDonald’s, and Walmart. The workers sat on one side of the stage, while on the other idled five empty chairs, each emblazoned with the name of an absent CEO. Sanders had invited the executives to participate in the discussion, but none had agreed.
“I guess they didn’t show up,” Sanders said, gesturing to the vacant chairs. “We made a sincere effort, because I think it would’ve been an extraordinary discussion for them to defend the kind of compensation they get in contrast to the people who work for them.”
An empty chair for your opponent is the oldest trick in the book, but that doesn’t mean it’s not effective!
(3) Breaking the Deal: The Aftermath of Trump’s Decision on the Iran Nuclear Agreement, May 14, 2018
Press Release: Announcement
Online venue: Live stream with media partners
Location: Capitol Visitor Center’s Congressional Auditorium, Washington DC
The Bennington Banner:
Sanders, who was criticized during his 2016 presidential campaign for a dearth of foreign policy experience, moderated the panel of four experts in an hour-long conversation that focused on American foreign policy in the Middle East.
“I think that in American politics there is not the full degree of understanding in terms of what the implications of foreign policy are,” Sanders said.
While issues like health care and education feel immediate to Americans, United States foreign policy “often seems a little bit distant,” he said.
However, Sanders contended, the amount the country spends on the military makes overseas relations with other countries directly pertinent to domestic issues.
“That brings the issue of foreign policy kind of back home in terms of our national priorities,” he said.
The event attracted a smaller audience than his previous two town halls. Some 600,000 tuned in online, according to Sanders’ staff, less than half of the 1.7 million viewership of his last event on economic inequality in March.
Note the smaller audience; Sanders instincts to focus on universal concrete material benefits may be politically sound. Note that this is really a panel discussion; the Sanders press release bills it as a “Town Hall” even though there’s constituent participation, which could be taken to show a lack of confidence on Sanders’ part.
(4) Inequality in America: The Rise of Oligarchy and Collapse of the Middle Class: March 19, 2018
Press Releases: Announcement; recap
Online venue: Live stream with media partners
Location: Capitol Visitor Center’s Congressional Auditorium, Washington DC
[Y]esterday, 1.7 million people tuned in to watch Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Michael Moore, and a panel of experts discuss inequality.
It was 90 minutes of wonkish, measured expert discussion of substantive matters of economics and policy, with special emphasis on the racial dimension of structural poverty, in webcast form.
The result, Sanders said in his introductory remarks, is a country where “the top 10th of 1 percent owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent.
“In recent years, we have seen incredible growth in the number of billionaires, while 40 million Americans continue to live in poverty and we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on Earth,” he continued.
A prominent feature of the evening’s analysis that Sanders’ critics have sometimes accused him of downplaying was an explicit breakdown of the racial roots of American poverty.
WAMC:
[SANDERS:] There is something very wrong when young people have got to go to Germany in order to get a higher education. There’s something wrong when people have got to go across the Canadian border to get affordable prescription drugs. There’s something wrong when the in greatest nation in the history of the world, the most wealthy nation, our infrastructure is collapsing and we’ve got 40 million people living in poverty.”
Note that this format, too, is a panel discussion: Sanders, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and filmmaker Michael Moore interview subject matter experts.
(5) Medicare for All: January 23, 2018
Press Releases: Announcement; recap
Online venue: Live stream with media partners
Location: Capitol Visitor Center’s Congressional Auditorium, Washington DC
Wisconsin Gazette:
A national town hall on Medicare for all hosted by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. and digital media outlets The Young Turks, NowThis and ATTN: drew nearly 1.1 million live viewers Jan. 23.
The number rivals the viewership of cable news in prime time.
And, mid-day Jan. 24, more than 1.6 million views had accumulated on the town hall video across platforms.
Sanders comments:
[SANDERS:] Far too often corporate television limits the nature of what we see and the discussions we have. This event will not be interrupted by commercials from drug or insurance companies or Wall Street.
Sanders noted that the event was the first nationally broadcast town hall taking place outside the corporate media. ‘This is, I think, kind of revolutionary, is it not?’ he said to YTN host Ana Kasparian in a pre-town hall interview. ‘This could be the very first step in bringing millions of people into serious discussion about the serious issues facing our country.’
Here we have Sanders moderating a discussion among experts; again, no constituent participation, unless via chat in the live stream.
(6) Tax Reform (Sanders, Cruz): October 18, 2017
Online venue: CNN
Location: Washington, DC
In two minutes, Senator Cruz is going to tell you that if we give tax breaks to the billionaires like George W. Bush did, like Ronald Reagan did, we’re going to create zillions of jobs and you’re all going to become very, very rich, that we have a trickle-down economic theory, tax breaks for the wealthiest people, the largest corporations, and, whoa, everything is good.
That is a totally fraudulent theory. Here is the reality of American society today. For 40 years, the middle class of this country, the great middle class has been shrinking. And what we have seen is a massive transfer of wealth from working families to the top 0.1 percent, trillions of dollars because of cooperate greed and an unfair tax system.
And then the other thing they do, in order to pay for [n-o-o-o-o-o] their tax breaks, you know what they do? They cut Medicaid over a 10-year period by $1 trillion, throwing 15 million Americans off of the health insurance they have. They cut Medicare by $470 billion.
(7) Tax Reform (Sanders, Cruz, Cantwell): November 28, 2017
Online venue: CNN
Location: Washington, DC
CNN:
[SANDERS:] The tax bills in both the House and the Senate give the lion’s share of tax breaks to the top 1%
Thank you, Occupy (though I prefer the precision of 0.1%, as in the quote above).
(8) Graham-Cassidy Health Care Bill (Graham, Cassidy, Sanders, Klobuchar): September 25, 2017
Online venue: CNN
Location: Washington, DC
from a human point of view — we’ve heard some of that discussion tonight — understand what it means when people who are struggling with cancer, heart disease, diabetes suddenly get the word that that legislation passed and they lose the health insurance they have. That is their lifeline for literally staying alive. Our job as a humane society is to do a couple of things. It’s not to throw 30 million people off of health insurance. It’s to do what every other major country on Earth does, guarantee health care to all people as a right. That’s what we should be doing. And second of all, what we have got to be doing is come up with short- term solutions. And I think Amy mentioned some of them. Why don’t we make sure that in every state in this country there is a public option, a strong set of benefits, and an affordable course to compete with private insurance? I think that’s a very, very good idea. Some want to do it through a Medicare option; some want to do it through a Medicare option. But people should have the option to go beyond the private insurance company in their own community. I think that would be a successful effort, and I would hope that you would support us on that.
The trouble with short-term solutions is that they open the door to yet another liberal Democrat bait-and-switch operation, exactly like the so-called public option, which I’d speculate is exactly what Pelosi and Schumer are scheming to do. If there’s going to be a short-term solution, then make it part of a phase-in to HR-676 or S-1802. Otherwise, we’re just kicking the can down the road for another couple of election cycles.
(9) Health Care, August 22, 2017
Online venue: Facebook
Location: Fellowship Chapel Church, Detroit, MI
“I’m concerned with the quality of life [in Detroit]. Nationwide it’s not so much [racial/identity politics anymore] because we are all suffering. This is a class situation,” said Sharon, an African-American woman in her late forties standing in line. Decked out in pins for Coleman Young II’s mayoral campaign, she was adamant that the era of Clintonism wasn’t sustainable for the Democratic party and had to come to an end.
“Using public assistance and stuff to try and make ends meet — the living conditions are just getting worse and worse and I see two different Detroits and I don’t like that,” she said.
These sentiments from Sharon regarding the present situation in America, and Detroit in particular, becoming ever more untenable were echoed by many others at the event.
(10) Bernie Sanders Speaks, August 22, 2017 (10:30AM)
Online venue: YouTube (partial)
Location: Shawnee State University, Portsmouth, OH
WSAZ:
[SANDERS:] I fully understand that Donald Trump won this county. I am here because I am an old-fashioned guy who does not believe in red states and blue states.
[SANDERS:] I am in Trump country because I think the issues you face here in southern Ohio are not any different than in Vermont or California or any other state,” he said.
Trump won 65 percent of the vote in Scioto County.
I think it’s high time we focus on the most important issues facing our country and do not allow people to divide us up based on the color of our skin, our sexual orientation…We have to be smarter than that.
As human beings and Americans we are entitled to certain rights….we have a whole lot of freedoms…and I would add to those rights the American people are also entitled to certain economic rights. At the top of that list is the right to healthcare, whether we are rich or poor.
(11) College For All, October 17, 2017
Online venue: From the live stream
Location: Castleton University, Castleton, VT
And let me be very clear. I am not just talking about 4-year universities and colleges. I am talking about community colleges. I am talking about vocational schools. I am talking about apprenticeships. We desperately need highly trained and highly skilled electricians, welders, plumbers, mechanics, pipefitters and health care workers of every kind.
This is not a radical idea. A number of nations around the world are doing just that, investing in their young people so that they will have an educated workforce that isn’t burdened with enormous student debt. In Germany, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden public colleges and universities are tuition free. In Germany, public colleges are free not only for Germans, but also for international students, including some 11,000 from the United States of America.
(12) Bernie Sanders in Trump Country, March 13, 2017
Online venue: MSNBC
Location: Welch, West Virginia (McDowell County)
Metro News. On coal miners:
“These guys are heroes,” Sanders said. “I grew up in a rent-controlled apartment house in Brooklyn, New York, and I will never forget the piles of coal. I don’t know if it came from here or where it came.”
“You kept my house warm. Thank you,” the senator said
Sanders asked a West Virginian coal miner if ‘[America] should join other countries and guarantee healthcare as a right?’ to which he replied, ‘Yes, I think every American citizen should have healthcare.’ The miner’s response, along with the crowd’s thunderous applause, demonstrate the complicated nature of the relationship among GOP voters, Trump and his campaign promises, and healthcare.
(13) Sanders vs. Cruz: The Future of ObamaCare, February 2, 2017
Online venue: CNN
Location: George Washington University, Washington, DC
CNN:
LaRonda Hunter, who owns five hair salons in Texas, said she can’t afford to provide coverage to her employees because of low profit margins and that the Obamacare rule is preventing her from growing her business.
Sanders responded with what he prefaced would be “an answer you will not be happy with.”
“I’m sorry, I think that in America today, everybody should have health care. And if you have more than 50 people, you know what, I think I’m afraid to tell you, but I think you will have to provide health insurance,” Sanders said.
Cruz shot back that Democrats have turned small businesses into a “bad actor.”
“Millions of businesses are being told by Democrats: tough luck,” Sanders said. “It’s one of the most damaging things about Obamacare.”
(14) Senator Bernie Sanders Town Hall, January 9, 2017
Online venue: CNN
Location: George Washington University, Washington, DC
CNN:
[SANDERS:] We just cannot allow this culture of corporate greed, which results in the very, very rich becoming much richer, a middle class shrinking, and 43 million people living in poverty. Somebody has got to stand up to these billionaires and say “You know what? Enough is enough. You cannot have it all.” I want an economy that belongs to all of us — works for all of us. People forget, Chris, we are the wealthiest nation in the history of the world. And our job now is to create a government which represents all of the people; not just the one percent.
Considering the technical aspects of the Town Halls, the contrast between 2017 and 2018 is interesting. In 2017, Sanders barnstorms so-called Trump Country (I assume proving to himself that he can win those votes). The CNN format pits him against other candidates, but also allows constituent participation. In 2018, the format changes — to me, disappointingly — to a panel discussion format, with streaming to media partners. (The Sanders “digital media operation” is very effective, and disseminates millions of clips from the live streams.) We also have press releases starting in 2018 — there are none before that date — which suggests the Sanders operation is tightening up — perhaps anticipating a 2020 run?
Looking at the topics covered, Mr. Counter-suggestible sees some weaknesses. First, foreign policy. Sanders really needs to subject himself to constituent participation, here. I feel strongly that if Sanders did a foreign policy town hall in “Trump Country,” which tends to have higher battlefield casualties than the average, he would meet with a very favorable reception were he to advocate for an end to our endless wars (as Trump, in his crude way of speaking the unspeakable truth, did successfully in 2016). Second, there are two systemic issues that are critical to conveying concrete material benefits: (1) the voting system, and (2) MMT. The first is needed to make sure electoral gains for the left are not undone by crooks, whether liberal or conservative. The second is needed, ideologically, to get the country out of the austerity box. I would suggest Atlanta, GA as a suitable location for the first topic, and the University of Kansas City at Missouri for the second. And again, and bring back constituent participation — maybe from online viewers? Let’s not send the message that professionals, even subject matter experts of integrity, are the only people listening to, mkay?
My bottom line: I think this series of Town Halls shows that Sanders is in a class by himself as politician, and not just because he’s an Independent. What Democrat politician — let alone a potential 2020 candidate — is barnstorming the country with this level of intensity? What Democrat politician has such a structural critique? What Democrat politician has such a focus on universal concrete material benefits, especially for the working class? Above all, what other politician — besides Trump on Twitter — is disintermediating the political class by speaking directly with millions of constituents?
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