Bernie Sanders knows how to draw a crowd, much like his unlikely rival for populist affections, President-elect Donald Trump. Sanders even said recently he thinks the Democrats — meaning Hillary Clinton — needed to do more big rallies to charge up enthusiasm. Sanders credits Trump for recognizing a rally’s value, just as Sanders did. But Sanders doesn’t think that just because Trump can draw 30,000 to a rally that such drawing power makes the President-elect truly popular. No, Sanders thinks that any lens picturing Trump as popular distorts reality.
[Senator Sanders’ new book is called Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In]
Because Sanders can do the math. 30,000 people — while a big crowd — is a drop in the ocean of the overall US population. With an estimated population of 320 million people, 30,000 represents just 0.009 percent. (Sanders himself drew such crowds and didn’t even win his party’s nomination.) Doing that math, and considering Clinton’s popular vote advantage, Sanders told a sold-out crowd in San Rafael this weekend: “I look at this election not as a victory for Mr. Trump, who wins the election as the most unpopular candidate in perhaps the history of our country, but as a loss for the Democratic Party.”
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