In March 1981, 39-year-old, Brook­lyn-born Bernie Sanders was elect­ed may­or of Burling­ton, Ver­mont. In These Times report­ed at the time, ​“The poor and dis­en­fran­chised in Vermont’s largest city have some­thing to cheer about with the sur­prise elec­tion of Bernard Sanders as may­or.” Locals called it a ​“mini-rev­o­lu­tion.” It grew out of Sanders’ abil­i­ty to lead a polit­i­cal coali­tion of low-income work­ing peo­ple, pub­lic hous­ing ten­ants, envi­ron­men­tal­ists, the elder­ly, com­mu­ni­ty orga­ni­za­tions, col­lege fac­ul­ty, women and dis­grun­tled city work­ers — includ­ing the city police, whose union endorsed him.

'We don’t have the luxury of giving up on the political process. Our political opponents are doing everything they can to stack the deck in favor of the billionaire class, and in fact they want people to give up on the political process. That makes their job easier.'

In Novem­ber 1990, Sanders forged a sim­i­lar coali­tion statewide, and with 56 per­cent of the vote was elect­ed to Vermont’s sin­gle House seat. As In These Times report­ed, ​“Sanders fash­ioned a strong appeal to work­ing-class and old­er Ver­mon­ters, many of whom nor­mal­ly vote for Repub­li­cans. It is this sin­gu­lar abil­i­ty to find sup­port across cul­tur­al lines that accounts for the first con­gres­sion­al vic­to­ry by an inde­pen­dent social­ist in over 40 years.” Dur­ing his first year as a U.S. rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Sanders made his mark as a co-founder the Con­gres­sion­al Pro­gres­sive Cau­cus, which is today the largest orga­nized bloc of House members.

In 2006, he was elect­ed to the Sen­ate, defeat­ing mil­lion­aire Repub­li­can busi­ness­man Richard Tar­rant in the most expen­sive cam­paign in Ver­mont history.

Sanders spoke with In These Times about the need for pro­gres­sives to mobi­lize and the pos­si­bil­i­ty that he might run for pres­i­dent in 2016.

What do you say to folks, par­tic­u­lar­ly young peo­ple, who are dis­cour­aged about the abil­i­ty of reg­u­lar cit­i­zens to influ­ence elect­ed officials?

I share the view that nei­ther Pres­i­dent Oba­ma nor Con­gress is address­ing the most sig­nif­i­cant issues fac­ing our coun­try. We can argue whether Obama’s agen­da is not as pro­gres­sive as it should be, but we should rec­og­nize that in the House there’s a huge oppo­si­tion to any­thing the pres­i­dent says, and in the Sen­ate we’ve need­ed 60 votes to get any­thing done. We don’t have the lux­u­ry of giv­ing up on the polit­i­cal process. Our polit­i­cal oppo­nents are doing every­thing they can to stack the deck in favor of the bil­lion­aire class, and in fact they want peo­ple to give up on the polit­i­cal process. That makes their job eas­i­er. We have a war going on led by the Koch broth­ers and oth­er bil­lion­aires against the work­ing and mid­dle class­es. Of course it’s very dif­fi­cult. But the response is not to turn your backs and hide under the car­pet. The response is to stand up and keep think­ing of ways to effec­tive­ly mobi­lize people.

A lot of peo­ple have been encour­ag­ing you to seek the Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­na­tion for pres­i­dent in 2016. When will you make a decision?

That deci­sion is not going to be made by me alone. It will depend on whether there’s an appetite for a strong grass­roots pro­gres­sive cam­paign. There are peo­ple who would like me to run in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic pri­ma­ry, and there are oth­ers who would like me to run as an Inde­pen­dent. But it’s going to be many months before I make that deci­sion. My main con­cern right now is to make sure Democ­rats hold onto the Senate.

Hillary Clin­ton is wide­ly seen as the pre­sump­tive nom­i­nee. What would you say to peo­ple who believe Democ­rats should all unite behind the frontrunner?

I don’t believe the media has the right to anoint a can­di­date as the fron­trun­ner. I have known Hillary Clin­ton for a num­ber of years, and I have a lot of respect and admi­ra­tion for her. I don’t know if she’s going to run, and I don’t know what her plat­form would be. But I think a vig­or­ous debate on real issues is a good thing for Amer­i­can democracy.

What would you say to those who say that Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty activism is a waste of time, and what we need is a third, tru­ly pro­gres­sive party?

Thanks to the Koch broth­ers and oth­er right-wing extrem­ists, the Repub­li­can Par­ty has moved from a mod­er­ate con­ser­v­a­tive par­ty to a right-wing extrem­ist par­ty. It’s also fair to say that the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty has moved from a cen­ter-left par­ty, whose main con­stituen­cy was the work­ing class of the coun­try, to a cen­trist par­ty heav­i­ly influ­enced by big mon­ey and cor­po­rate dona­tions. A lot of peo­ple would respond pos­i­tive­ly to some­body out­side of a two-par­ty sys­tem, which they hold in a great deal of con­tempt. The prob­lem is that estab­lish­ing an inde­pen­dent polit­i­cal struc­ture in 50 sep­a­rate states is no small thing. You have to start get­ting on the bal­lot and devel­op­ing that infra­struc­ture all over the coun­try. It’s expen­sive and it takes a lot of time. If you’re in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic pri­ma­ry, there’s an infra­struc­ture already there, it’s eas­i­er to get on the bal­lot, the media would pay more atten­tion and you’d be able to engage in a num­ber of debates with oth­er can­di­dates. So there are plusses and minus­es going either way.

As you said, the pub­lic debate in this coun­try is between the cen­ter and the Right. How does one move the dis­cus­sion left?

The good news is that on almost every major issue fac­ing this coun­try, there is a strong con­sen­sus on where the Amer­i­can peo­ple want to go, and it’s cer­tain­ly not in line with cor­po­rate Amer­i­ca and the 1%. If you ask peo­ple what their main con­cerns are, vir­tu­al­ly every poll says the answer is jobs and eco­nom­ics. They want the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to engage in a sig­nif­i­cant jobs pro­gram by rebuild­ing our crum­bling infra­struc­ture. They under­stand that a $7.25 min­i­mum wage is a star­va­tion wage and want to sub­stan­tial­ly raise that. I think most peo­ple believe health­care is a right, and a sim­ple Medicare-for-all, sin­gle-pay­er sys­tem would have pop­u­lar sup­port. The Amer­i­can peo­ple want Wash­ing­ton to rep­re­sent them and the envi­ron­ment. But what you have is a sys­tem dom­i­nat­ed by big mon­ey, which isn’t doing that. If we edu­cate and orga­nize, we can push a pro­gres­sive agen­da that would have the sup­port of a sig­nif­i­cant major­i­ty of the Amer­i­can people.

You have said that you ​“strong­ly dis­agree with this con­cept that there’s a blue-state and a red-state Amer­i­ca.” Last fall you toured the South try­ing to recruit can­di­dates, who, as you put it, ​“have the courage to stand up to big mon­ey inter­ests and rep­re­sent work­ing fam­i­lies.” What is behind this initiative?

Democ­rats have made a pro­found mis­take in ignor­ing large parts of this coun­try. While the world in Ver­mont is very dif­fer­ent from the world in South Car­oli­na or Mis­sis­sip­pi or Alaba­ma, the truth is work­ing fam­i­lies are hurt­ing in every state. Most peo­ple think we should pro­tect the envi­ron­ment and reverse cli­mate change. You have many states where work­ing peo­ple who are now enti­tled to Med­ic­aid can’t get it because of right-wing gov­er­nors and leg­is­la­tures. Not to mount a chal­lenge in a very force­ful way in those states is wrong.

Respond­ing to McCutcheon v. FEC, which allows indi­vid­u­als to con­tribute up to $3.5 mil­lion in each fed­er­al cam­paign cycle, you said, ​“Free­dom of speech in my view does not mean free­dom to buy the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment.” How can we the peo­ple best coun­ter­act these abom­inable Supreme Court rulings?

The cur­rent Supreme Court has issued some of the worst rul­ings in the his­to­ry of the judi­cia­ry. They’re paving the way for oli­garchy in Amer­i­ca. Of all the issues I’m con­cerned about, cam­paign finance is at the top of the list. If we don’t reverse the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion where the Koch broth­ers and Shel­don Adel­son can spend bil­lions of dol­lars on elec­tions, we’ll end up with not only an econ­o­my but a polit­i­cal process that’s con­trolled by a small num­ber of peo­ple. So what do you do? You ral­ly the Amer­i­can peo­ple for a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment to over­turn Cit­i­zens Unit­ed, and you move toward pub­lic fund­ing of elections.

What role does the inde­pen­dent press, like In These Times, play in help­ing move the coun­try in a more pro­gres­sive direction?

I’ve read In These Times for many, many years, as you know, and The Nation and Moth­er Jones. We have some great media out there, includ­ing talk show hosts like Thom Hart­mann, who are rais­ing issues that the cor­po­rate media does not talk about. That’s impor­tant because it edu­cates a lot of peo­ple, and some of those ideas will fil­ter on up to media with larg­er con­stituen­cies. But just focus­ing on the real issues fac­ing work­ing fam­i­lies — and focus­ing on what cli­mate change will do to our plan­et — is enor­mous­ly impor­tant. Talk­ing about the truth and stand­ing up to pow­er is an end in itself.