Bernie Sanders Image by Getty Images

Bernie Sanders set aside his grievances with Hillary Clinton during the general election, crisscrossing the nation on behalf of his ex-primary rival. He’s keeping his silence, though, in the wake of President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in the November election.

“We have nothing polite to say,” Sanders adviser told CNN’s Jeff Zeleny on Wednesday, refusing to comment on the race’s outcome.

It wasn’t clear if Bernie is stewing over Trump’s shocking win — or his belief that Hillary Clinton was a seriously flawed candidate.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

After Clinton’s stunning defeat, Sanders’ primary boosters started to grumble that he would have carried the blue-collar, Midwestern states that Clinton lost to Trump.

Those complaints were in part a response to earlier claims that Clinton would be more electable than Sanders, which led the Democratic establishment to actively help her secure the nomination against her underdog challenger.

Ben Norton, a politics reporter at Salon, captured that mood in a Twitter post, writing, “hate to say we told you so, but Bernie Sanders warned the Democratic Party, and it didn’t listen; it sabotaged him.”

He attached a link to a June op-ed that Sanders wrote for the New York Times in the wake of Brexit, the vote that Britain to leave the European Union over concerns about immigration and which many have argued foreshadowed Trump’s success.

In that op-ed, titled “Democrats Need to Wake Up,” Sanders warned that America could see the victory of a similar ethnonationalist populism.

To prevent such an outcome, he counseled, “In this pivotal moment, the Democratic Party and a new Democratic president need to make clear that we stand with those who are struggling and who have been left behind. We must create national and global economies that work for all, not just a handful of billionaires.”

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$90 $180

$360

Other amount