Howard Dean Says Bernie Sanders "Could End Up Being the Next Ralph Nader"
If Bernie Sanders really wants the best for America, he'll admit his bid for the presidency is kaput, says Howard Dean — a man who knows what it's like to run and be done.
"The race is over," Dean said in episode four of Special Relationship, the podcast from Mic and the Economist that dives deep into the global implications of the race for president. "[Sanders] hasn't acted like it is. The sooner he comes to grips with what he's going to do between now and November, the sooner we find out what his legacy's going to be.
"This is a critical juncture which I'm not sure he has yet understood. How he leaves this race and what he does afterwards matters a lot. He could end up being the next Ralph Nader [the 2000 Green Party nominee], who deprives the Democrats of the Congress and ends up electing a... I don't know what to call Donald Trump, but certainly nothing flattering."
In our fourth podcast episode, hosts Celeste Katz of Mic and John Prideaux of the Economist delve into the larger meaning of the Sanders phenomenon and what it means for the future of Democratic and third-party politics.
Dean, a supporter of Sanders rival Hillary Clinton, looks at the election through the lens of his own experiences as a 2004 presidential contender.
"It took me about five seconds to realize I had to succumb to the inevitable and no matter how fair or unfair I thought it was, it is about the country," said Dean, whose White House bid spectacularly imploded after a roaring start, but left its own lasting mark on American politics.
Following Dean on the podcast is Sam Knight, who uses the knowledge he gained from writing "Enter Left," a deeply reported New Yorker profile of Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, to compare the state of left-flank politics in the U.S. and the U.K.
As Wright describes him in the profile,
Corbyn, a 66-year-old socialist, had never held a position of authority in his party or in government before being elected last summer on a platform of benign economic populism. He is Syriza in Greece; he is Podemos in Spain; he is Sanders in America. His politics rebel against a Britain that is eager to join foreign wars and pallid in the face of social inequality. "There has to be some kind of a reckoning," Corbyn told me recently. "You actually have to run an economy for the benefit of people, not run for the benefit of hedge-fund managers."
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