In this clip from the Rachel Maddow Show, one of television media’s only remaining anchors worthy of our trust and respect sits down with middle-class champion Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to discuss the rise of Donald Trump and the backlash we’re facing from our allies across the world.
Maddow begins by informing us as to the results of the recent mayoral election in London, United Kingdom, where the Labour Party won a sweeping victory and elected Sadiq Khan as the first-ever Muslim mayor of London after a bitter campaign that saw his Conservative Party opponent using “tactics straight out of the Donald Trump playbook” against him.
The host notes that under Trump’s policies, the Mayor of the capital of our closest overseas ally would not be allowed to enter the United States, an idea so absurd that the two share a hearty laugh. Returning to a more serious discussion, Sanders mourns that Trump is already hurting the image of the United States abroad just “by virtue of the fact that the Republican Party picked him” to be their nominee.
“A) Trump is not going to get elected President” Sanders says confidently. “My campaign is running, in the latest poll, sixteen points ahead of Trump. And B) as a United States Senator I will do everything in my power to make sure that that absurd, hateful proposal never happens. What your question is really asking is all over the world, people are looking at America, anywhere with a Muslim population – it’s a worldwide religion – and they’re asking what is going on in the United States? Why do they hate us?…he is managing to antagonize large populations of the world against the United States, and that is unacceptable.”
The reputation of the United States, dragged through the mud by the neocolonial wars of the George W. Bush Administration, is finally on the way up. It’s extremely frustrating to see years of work being thrown away by the Republican Party by the howls of their bigoted death rattle.
We can’t let Trump’s dangerous delusions become a reality – not just for our sake but for the world at large. What kind of a message would a Trump win send to our European allies, who are struggling with their own far right-wing anti-Muslim/white supremacy movements? Dictators and fascists across the world would cheer and their downtrodden peoples would despair. “You see what democracy and freedom brings?” the autocrats would say, pointing to the immigrants that would be inevitably constructing the border wall. A Trump victory would be the worst thing for the cause of free speech and expression across the world since the rise of the Soviet Union- and this time, it would be our fault.
Watch it here: