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On CNN’s State Of The Union, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) explained that Democrats are will elections all across the country because Trump is a national referendum and people are rising up to vote no.

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Sanders said, “If you look at the election of November 7th, what you are seeing all across the country are people catching on to the fact that Donald Trump ran for president, saying that he was going to defend the working trust of the middle class. And it turned out he lied. You have a president who told us that he was going to provide health care to everybody that he proposed. 30,000,000 off with health insurance. The tax plan was going to benefit the middle class. The bulk of the benefits go to the rich and large corporations. He was going to take on the drug companies and then appoints the guy to head the health and human services agency that comes from the drug companies, et cetera, et cetera. I think what you’re seeing is a referendum on Donald Trump. About a man who said one thing during the campaign and his actions are very, very different. He wanted to drain the swamp. Well, it looks like the swamp has more billionaires in this administration than any president in American history. So I think the — what we’re seeing in Alabama, what we are seeing in Virginia and new Jersey and states all across the country. A large number of voter turnouts where people are standing up to demand that we have a government that represents all of us, not just the 1%. If I were the Republicans, I would worry very much about 2018.”

What Sanders said was the best Christmas message that Democrats and the left could get. Republicans are trying to play off these election defeats as having nothing to do with Trump while scrambling behind the scenes to motivate their base and negate the Trump Effect with voters at large.

2016 was a tough year for Democrats, but the election of Trump might end up providing Democrats with a bigger opportunity to deliver the kind of progress they have been dreaming of since 2008. Voters took Obama and the Democrats for granted. Trump has been a giant wake up call. The left and some Democrats were in a constant state of quibbling over things like who had the better plan to pay for free college. After Trump’s election, everyone is on the same page. The big free tuition debate of 2016 now looks charmingly out of touch as Trump and his party are looking to dismantle Social Security and Medicare.

Democrats and the left are hopefully learning a valuable lesson that it is more important to work together to gain and keep power than to allow the coalition to be torn apart over policy differences. Sanders isn’t a Democrat, but he plays an important role in Senate Democratic leadership, and his status does nothing to change the point of the message that Democrats are winning the war against Trump.