Sander’s unhinged cantankerousness shouldn’t be misinterpreted as 'authenticity.' His behavior routinely contradicts his professed ideals.

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With terror escalating among mainstream Democrats, Bernie Sanders has captured a sudden lead in the 2020 Democratic primary race that may prove insurmountable. 

Even excluding Sanders, this cycle’s Democratic candidates have collectively driven their party to unprecedented leftist extremes.  Yet it speaks volumes that even they malign him in rare unison for what they label his borderline lunatic socialist ideology. 

Despite that increasing alarm and attack, Sanders maintains his stubborn support for one curiously ironic reason:  his alleged “authenticity.”  Sanders’s beliefs may defy all logic and history, supporters acknowledge, but they adore what they see as his genuine fidelity to those extremist principles. 

That’s puzzling, because Sanders is the most inauthentic and hypocritical candidate in the 2020 race. 

Granted, it’s easy for Sanders to appear authentic when graded on a curve against his 2020 Democratic competitors.  Pete Buttigieg robotically recites poll-tested platitudes, Joe Biden is a confirmed plagiarist who has reversed himself or bungled every significant policy position of his long career, Elizabeth Warren remains most infamous for concocting an American Indian identity to advance her early career, Michael Bloomberg coldly bought his way into the race on the basis of hundreds of millions of dollars already spent and Amy Klobuchar’s “Midwestern nice” routine is defied by her renowned cruelty toward her own employees on Capitol Hill. 

Nevertheless, Sander’s unhinged cantankerousness shouldn’t be misinterpreted as “authenticity.”  His behavior routinely contradicts his professed ideals. 

Let’s start with the issue of First Amendment rights, which federal, state and local governments limit via so-called “campaign finance reform” laws. 

In his 2020 campaign platform, Sanders advocates forced disclosure of donor names by nonprofit organizations.  But as The Washington Post recently reported, he refused to apply that simple standard to a nonprofit group that he founded to support his own campaign and attack his Democratic competition: 

In early December, about 100 activists aligned with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I – Vt.) gathered in South Bend, Ind., the home turf of rival candidate Pete Buttigieg.  They held up signs touting Medicare-for-all and other signature Sanders proposals.  One accused Buttigieg of neglecting African Americans.  Another said it was crucial for Sanders to win the election. 

This was not a Sanders campaign event.  It was a rally staged by Our Revolution, a nonprofit founded by the senator that has caused some awkwardness for him in his second run for president. While the group is supporting his candidacy, it accepts large donations without fully disclosing who made them, a practice at odds with his calls for greater transparency and stated desire to curtail the power of the wealthy in elections. 

Private citizens should be able to support whatever political causes or candidates they favor, and that shouldn’t be the government’s or anybody else’s business, as the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously recognized in NAACP v. Alabama (1958).  But Bernie’s effort to violate those First Amendment freedoms of speech and association are made worse by his blatant hypocrisy. 

Or take Bernie’s professed support for the environmentally extremist “Green New Deal.” 

Sanders says that the multi-trillion-dollar bill doesn’t go far enough, yet he wouldn’t even vote for it when given the opportunity by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R – Kentucky) last year after Sanders co-sponsored the bill.  Sanders claims on his campaign website that we only have an 11-year window to address climate change, yet he couldn’t even bring himself to vote for a bill that he considers moderate? 

Sanders also announced this week that he would boycott the pro-Israel American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) annual conference because he says it’s a “platform for bigotry.”  Yet Sanders is perfectly happy to openly associate with outright anti-Semites and racists like Al Sharpton. 

And then there’s the most glaring and personalized Sanders inauthenticity of all:  He claims to oppose the Trump tax cuts, yet filed his own tax returns exploiting that lower Trump rate. 

Sanders has become a millionaire during his long career in public office – which is curious enough for a class warrior like himself – and he owns several homes across the country.  Yet he deliberately chose to file his own taxes according to the reduced rate that he claims shouldn’t be available to other millionaires. 

Bret Baier of Fox News confronted Sanders on that dissonance during an interview last year, but Sanders refused to explain or justify his voluntary decision.  He merely scoffed and attempted to change the subject by demanding access to President Trump’s tax returns. 

For good measure, Sanders advocates raising the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, regardless of location across America.  But did Sanders pay that rate to his own campaign staffers?  Of course not. 

There’s a word for what Sanders represents, and it’s not “authentic.”  It’s “hypocrite.” 

That’s something important for Americans to consider, lest Bernie bring to life the “socialism for thee, but immunity for me” scenario of George Orwell’s “Animal Farm.”