Hey everyone, it’s Leo, and I’m back with another political blog! In this blog, we’ll discuss the workings of one of the most complicated relationships of the 2020 election season.
Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders — they’re the leftist power duo America has grown to love. Whether it be their overlapping politics, their shared hand gestures or their publicized friendship, something about the pair is charming and relatable to millions of Americans.
The senators, both self-identified progressives, have thrown full support behind each other in past elections. The senators, both of whom vote on the side of Trump’s position less than 13 percent of the time in the senate, are quick to recognize each other’s redeeming qualities.
“He’s out there. He fights from the heart. This is who Bernie is,” Warren said, in a 2016 interview covering the Vermont senator’s campaign.
Until last week, the senators’ relationship, political and social, prospered, even in the face of a tight race against each other for the Democratic Presidential Nomination.
The polls shifted, back and forth, between a Warren lead and a Sanders lead — usually tied or close to Biden. Their relationship, still strong, maintained its public legitimacy.
Then the race got real, and closer.
Days before the Jan. 14 Democratic Debate, Warren’s campaign accused Sanders of having said in a 2018 discussion between the two senators that he doubted a woman could beat President Trump in 2020. Sanders and his campaign then accused Warren of fabricating the statement, forming a rift between the candidates’ typically united supporters.
To make matters worse, cameras captured a discussion between the two senators at the close of the Jan. 14 debate, where Sanders again denied his alleged opinion regarding female presidential candidacy.
“I think you called me liar on national TV,” Warren said.
“You called me a liar,” Sanders said.
Rough. This dialogue, though short and sound-less, served as an instigator of division between the candidates and their supporters.
“Warren lied to Bernie’s face on live TV and the man still offered a handshake which she was petty enough to refuse,” said Sanders supporter Anthony Gonzalez, in a tweet with nearly three thousand likes.
At the Feb. 3 Iowa Caucuses, the results of the controversy came to fruition. After results were delayed by an issue linked to large-scale technical breakdowns, neither of the candidates came out on top, as with 86 percent of results released by the Iowa Democratic Party, Buttigieg narrowly took the lead, followed by Sanders, then Warren.
In the end, it seems like neither candidate was hurt by the controversy. Neither benefitted, and neither has spoken publicly about the issue since the days following the Jan. 14 debate.
America, we want our leftist power duo back, please.
Photo provided by theintercept.com