Sanders on billionaire class: ‘I welcome their hatred’

Kevin Hardy | The Des Moines Register

Show Caption Hide Caption Bernie Sanders vows to end 'stain of racism' Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders promised attendees of the Iowa State Fair that he would work to bring an end to institutional racism in America while speaking from the Des Moines Register's Political Soapbox.

BOONE, Iowa — Bernie Sanders borrowed from Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Iowa on Saturday morning and echoed the 32nd president’s disdain for the mega-rich who seek personal gain over the common good.

After delivering an hourlong stump speech, the Vermont senator opened the floor to questions at the Boone County Fairgrounds.

“I want to know if you are the next coming of FDR. We will fight for you if you will fight the Republicans in Congress,” said one man in the crowd of about 400 people. “I voted eight years ago for hope and change, and I’m still waiting.”

Sanders, an independent, is seeking the Democratic nomination for president. On Saturday, the second day of a three-day Iowa swing, he pointed out how FDR called the wealthy protectors of the status quo “economic royalists.”

“He said, ‘They hate my guts. Never have they hated someone as much as they hate me. And I welcome their hatred,’ ” Sanders said.

“And let me echo that today: If the Koch brothers and the billionaire class hate my guts, I welcome their hatred. Because I am going to stand with working families.”

In a 1936 speech at Madison Square Garden, just days before his re-election, Roosevelt described his opposition as "the old enemies of peace: business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering."

"They are unanimous in their hate for me — and I welcome their hatred."