I’ve gotten a fair bit of correspondence complaining that Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders hasn’t said anything recently in support of the human rights of Palestinians.
Of course, Sanders isn’t talking a lot about a lot of things that a lot of progressives wish he would talk more about. He’s not talking about cutting the bloated Pentagon budget, though some in the media apparently think that he is.
(My theory for this media behavior is that if Sanders mentions how much we spend on the Pentagon or how the Pentagon wastes our tax dollars, in the context of talking about our crumbling domestic infrastructure, some in the media hear that as a call to cut the Pentagon budget and use the money to rebuild the US. Like, if I said, “Those chocolate-chip cookies in the kitchen sure smell delicious,” you might think, “Naiman’s not just making an aesthetic judgment; he’s thinking about eating the cookies.”)
Clearly, Sanders has got his message: reduce extreme economic inequality, curb the political power of the billionaire class, address the challenge of climate change – and he’s determined, as much as possible, to “stay on message.”