Republican leadership failed to secure enough votes from Congress Thursday to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) attributes its failure to a burgeoning resistance movement.

On Thursday, the Vermont senator explained how civic engagement translates into policy changes in the nation's capital.

"Republicans historically had their town meetings. Thirty or 50 of their friends would show up, and they talked about cutting the deficit and cutting Social Security and Medicare, and everybody would applaud," he told Rachel Maddow Thursday. "But now you've seen people coming and saying, if you do this, my wife is going to die and I'm not going to let you do that."

"You're seeing members of Congress, Republicans, having to sneak out the back door or claim 'I'm worried about my safety, I can't even hold a town meeting.' That's our goal," Sanders said, referring to the overflowing town meetings that are getting Republicans' attention.

The Vermont senator has long favored a single-payer health care system, but he's also praised the Affordable Care Act for greatly decreasing the rate of uninsured people.

"The question is, how does [Mitch McConnell] think he could get away with in his own state throwing hundreds of thousands of people [in Kentucky] off health insurance?"

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