In a wide-ranging interview with Salon published on Thursday, Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges discussed, among other issues, the upcoming presidential election.

Ideologically close to Hedges is Bernie Sanders, the Independent Vermont senator and self-described democratic socialist running for president as a Democrat. Sanders, according to the journalist, is naive because he thinks the Democratic Party establishment will let him win the nomination.

According to Hedges, the concessions Sanders has made — campaigning for Hillary Clinton in 2016, for instance — and the relationships he appears to have built with the Democratic Party elite will not be of any help to him in 2020.

“Sanders built a relationship with the Democratic Party and this time around he thinks the party elites won’t steal the nomination from him, which they did last time,” he said.

“I think that Bernie is mistaken. I think he’s very naive. There’s no way the Democratic Party will allow him to be the nominee because the Democratic Party is funded by the same retrograde corporate interests that fund the Republican Party.”

Hedges praised progressive representatives Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, noting that they are “hated” by the same people that hate Bernie Sanders. Both Democrats and Republicans “hate” progressives like Ocasio-Cortez, according to Hedges, who noted that the root of this hatred is the progressives’ rejection of the ruling ideology of neoliberalism.

Hedges described President Donald Trump as a cult leader and a demagogue, who has already incited violence. The only reason Trump supporters have not committed violence against those they perceive as enemies, according to Hedges, is the fact that the American economy is still relatively stable.

Once and if the economy crashes again like it did in 2008, according to the journalist, “there will be a kind of incoherent rage on the part of the white, dispossessed working class.”

“There will be a rhetorical green-lighting of violence against those people who are made into scapegoats for the decline of the United States,” Hedges explained.

Story: The president of the United States warns his opponents of the possibility of armed pushback, saying it would be "very bad" if his supporters in the military, police and a biker group were provoked into getting "tough": https://t.co/TQgFWeqjDz — Daniel Dale (@ddale8) March 14, 2019

Equally problematic is the Democratic Party’s inability to deal with Trump, according to Hedges, who said that he fears Trump will win again in 2020. If Trump wins again, according to the Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, he will win in part because of the Democratic Party’s refusal to distance itself from Wall Street and corporate money.

The unholy alliance between Donald Trump and Christian Fascists, the threat "prayer warriors" pose to democracy, Bernie's "race problem" and the power of .@AOC. My new conversation .@salon w. .@ChrisLynnHedges.https://t.co/1dCbW7SFfX — chauncey devega (@chaunceydevega) March 14, 2019

In 2016, former Chair of the Democratic National Committee Donna Brazile wrote in Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns that Put Donald Trump in the White House, that the Clinton wing “took over” the Democratic Party, essentially rigging the primary race against Sanders. Excerpts of the book have been published by Politico.

According to Chris Hedges, history will repeat itself.

In the past week, a number of Hillary Clinton staffers have gone to the press, both publicly and anonymously, to air their frustrations about Bernie Sanders, who launched his 2020 presidential bid late last month. https://t.co/ImQMrspMEt — Vox (@voxdotcom) March 9, 2019

As previously reported by The Inquisitr, shortly after announcing his presidential campaign, Bernie Sanders emerged as the Democratic front-runner, raising $10 million in less than a week.

The Vermont senator is considered to be one of the most popular elected politicians in the United States, and polls have consistently found that the vast majority of American voters approve of him.