The center of power in the Dem Party is moving rapidly left and Sanders is serving as the conductor [View all]

For some reason this got hidden in GD so I am re-posting it here because I think it's an extremely important topic about the future direction of the Democratic Party. Sanders is moving it left and that is a fact. For some reason a lot of people find it upsetting to see a more progressive party which is something I never in a million years would have expected to see here.


By David Catanese, Senior Politics Writer | Sept. 15, 2017, at 6:00 a.m.
As Bernie Sanders deliberated his 2016 run for the presidency, he understood that his odds of toppling Hillary Clinton were low.

But winning was never the lone goal for the gruff independent from Vermont.

Despite more than two decades toiling in Congress, Sanders remained a backbench player, he confided to a top adviser at the time, according to "Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign." He sought a higher profile in the U.S. Senate for the liberal causes he had built his career around. A well-run White House campaign, win or lose, would do the trick.


Fast-forward more than two years and Sanders is seeing that notion bear fruit.

While his former primary opponent, Hillary Clinton, is relitigating the last war, an emboldened Sanders is already making moves to shape the next one. Clinton may technically be right, as she continues to assert in interviews, that Sanders "is not even a Democrat." But it's Democrats who are increasingly gravitating to Sanders, as 16 did this week by joining his legislation calling for a Medicare-for-all health care system.

Clinton is indicating she wants to remain active in politics by backing Democratic candidates in 2018 who can help flip Congress. But in a striking role reversal, it's the 76-year-old Sanders who now wields more power among the next line of budding aspirants in Democratic politics.

https://www.usnews.com/news/the-report/articles/2017-09-15/bernie-sanders-sets-the-bar-for-democrats-ahead-of-2020