Sen. Bernie Sanders: Poor policy prescriptions but redeeming personal qualities

Give Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) this much — he knows how to wield a gavel.

That was the consensus of many conservatives who watched Sanders, chairing the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, strike down a brawl between a fellow senator and a witness and labor leader in mid-November.

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Teamsters President Sean O’Brien had written on social media that Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) was a “clown” and a “fraud” and that he should “quit the tough guy act” in Congress unless he was willing to physically take the union leader on.

Mullin, a former MMA fighter, read this message out at the committee meeting and proposed that they throw down, then and there. The Oklahoma senator stood up and gave every indication he was about to pummel the witness, who, to remind, had publicly called for this confrontation.

By Sanders’s sheer force of will, communicated through his trademark Brooklyn accent, he managed to avert a bloodbath.

“Oh, hold it. Stop it. Hold it. No, no. Sit down. Sit down. You’re a United States senator. Sit down, please,” Sanders said, pointing downward with his right hand, which prompted Mullin to do so, at least temporarily.

“This is a hearing and God knows the American people have enough contempt for Congress,” Sanders said.

Both the Oklahoma senator and the labor leader tried to get more barbs in. Sanders pounded the gavel and talked over them. Eventually, they thought better of throwing down.

Playing the video back, Fox News late-night host Greg Gutfeld said, “You’ve got to love old man Sanders. He could have been a great president.” Co-host Kat Timpf added that Sanders had “won the fight. He didn’t stand up. He didn’t even lift his head.”

On most issues, movement conservatives strongly disagree with Sanders and want people to know this. Several Sanders-related headlines from the Heritage Foundation’s website should give readers a sense of the level of disagreement.

“Bernie Sanders’ Loan Bailout Would Benefit Colleges, Not Students,” argues one article. Tut-tut.

Another purports to show “Why Bernie Sanders’ Single-Payer Health Care Bill Would Be a Disaster.” And disasters should of course be avoided.

A third article explains that “Bernie Sanders Blamed Republicans for Our Debt Situation. He’s Only Half-Right.”

So even Heritage can admit the self-described socialist from Vermont has a half of a point now and then. But the agreement goes further. Once in a while, Sanders even sides with conservatives on contentious issues.

Exhibit A: Both Sanders and the lobbying arm of Heritage opposed the CHIPS and Science Act, a Biden administration-backed initiative that provided almost $300 billion of corporate welfare to the semiconductor industry.

Exhibit B: The Democratic Party, which Sanders caucuses with in the Senate and whose nomination he has run for a few times, has largely abandoned old notions of “equality” in favor of “equity,” but Sanders has not. “Which side do you come down on?” HBO host Bill Maher asked him in March. “Uh, equality,” Sanders said.

Beyond political positions, Sanders simply seems to “human” better than many of his fellow progressive politicians. This is part of his appeal to a large swath of the country.

Many Democrats make noises about how they want to govern for all people or bridge the growing gap between red and blue. But only Sanders actually went to the Jerry Falwell-founded Liberty University, in 2015, to make his case.

Of several social issues, Sanders frankly admitted, “We disagree on those issues. I get that. But let me respectfully suggest that there are other issues out there that are of enormous consequence to our country and the world and that maybe, just maybe, we don’t disagree on them.”

By most accounts, Sanders did not win many converts that day from the school’s conservative evangelical base. He made his points, answered tough but not hostile questions, and won something more important instead: respect.

That respect likely only deepened with his response to a notorious shooting a few years later.

Few things are greater nightmare fuel to politicians than the prospect of one of their supporters opening fire on the opposition. Yet that’s exactly what happened on June 14, 2017.

On that day, a former low-level volunteer for Sanders’s presidential campaign named James Hodgkinson opened fire on several Republican congressmen and aides who were practicing for the annual GOP vs. Democrats charity game in Alexandria, Virginia. He shot six people in all, including then-Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA), very nearly fatally, before himself being mortally wounded by Capitol Police.

The way Sanders handled this crisis was likely as good as any politician could have managed in this polarized era.

“I have just been informed that the alleged shooter at the Republican baseball practice is someone who apparently volunteered on my presidential campaign,” he said in a succinct statement that he read that day on the floor of the Senate. “I am sickened by this despicable act. Let me be as clear as I can be. Violence of any kind is unacceptable in our society, and I condemn this action in the strongest possible terms. Real change can only come about through nonviolent action, and anything else runs against our most deeply held American values.”

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Sanders added, “My hopes and prayers are that Rep. Scalise, congressional staff, and the Capitol Police officers who were wounded make a quick and full recovery. I also want to thank the Capitol Police for their heroic actions to prevent further harm.”

A few partisans, both more mainstream Democrats and conservative Republicans, tried to tie the shootings more closely to Sanders. Because of the way he carried himself on this and so many other occasions, it simply wasn’t going to stick.