Last month, BernieSanders spoke with dwallacewells about the terrifying and underappreciated scale of economic suffering produced by the pandemic and what that suffering demands of us
Photo: Getty Images All of a sudden, there is some genuinely good news about the coronavirus, visible at least in the medium distance: seemingly plateauing case numbers in “second wave” pandemic hot spots Florida, Texas, and Arizona; encouraging news from the most promising vaccine candidates; and early results suggesting a particular drug therapy, inhaled interferon beta, could reduce coronavirus mortality by as much as 79 percent.
On Wednesday, I spoke with Bernie Sanders about all of this — the terrifying and underappreciated scale of economic suffering produced by the pandemic and what that suffering demands of us, namely a dramatic change to the country’s basic political and social compact. That conversation, about what he calls “an unprecedented moment in American history,” is below.
Yeah, it seems to me like one of the real stories of the Biden campaign since the resolution of the primary has been him waking up to this set of issues quite dramatically. But before I ask you about that, and him, I wanted to ask you about the state of play in the Senate, given how blinkered your colleagues have been, as you were saying.
What we have also got to do, in my view, is provide a monthly stipend of $2,000 for every man and woman in this country. In my view, we should pass a paycheck-protection act. And I think we have got to, during the emergency, provide Medicare for All, at least during the emergency.
So the Republicans got very, very nervous and very upset. “How could it be,” they say, “that you’re actually giving a benefit to workers off these same wages? Living wages.” How terrible is that? I mean, imagine workers getting used to the fact they don’t have to earn ten or 11 bucks an hour but should get a living wage.
Thinking about November, and beyond, you mentioned earlier that this is an unprecedented moment in American history: There’s the pandemic, but there’s also all this large-scale, mass protest and what seems like social movement of really rapid speed. It seems, to me at least, a real generational shift in what is considered possible and what is considered acceptable.
The second lesson that’s been learned in terms of the economy. It’s one thing to say, well, before the pandemic happens our people are living paycheck to paycheck. And that means that you don’t have any money in the bank and you pay your bills with the paycheck that came in on Monday. Now what happens when the paycheck doesn’t come in on Monday? Oh my God, you can’t pay your bills. You can’t pay your rent. You can’t pay your credit-card debt. You can’t pay the phone bill.
David, I do think that, not only among the American people but some of my colleagues here in the Senate, there is now a willingness to look at our institutions and what has to be done in a very different light. And the role that I could play — that I think and what I hope will be the role the progressive community will play — is say to Joe Biden, say to Chuck Schumer, say to Nancy Pelosi, “You know what? You are going to have an extremely progressive first 100 days.
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