Woman Who Spoke Against White People Leading Dem Party Is Top Biden Adviser
In 2016, Symone Sanders said that “we don’t need white people leading the Democratic Party right now.”
Instead, the former Bernie Sanders campaign spokeswoman (no relation) said she was there “for the millennials and the brown folks” when it came to who should be leading the party going forward.
Maybe she still holds that opinion regarding the leadership of her own party.
I’m not really up on the mental vicissitudes of one Symone Sanders, so I can’t really speak to her current state of mind.
However, it’s worth reminding everyone of those 2016 comments because in 2019, she’s a top adviser to a very old white man who wants to be the leader of the free world and is loathed by millennials: former Vice President Joe Biden.
First, the infamous remarks that remain arguably what most people know about Symone Sanders.
During an appearance on CNN in November 2016, in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s electoral upset, Sanders talked about why she felt that folks without melanin need not apply for a job with Democratic leadership.
Here’s the video:
During the discussion, Sanders reacted poorly to the prospect of former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, formerly the head of the Democratic National Committee, returning to lead it.
“Howard Dean is also on record maligning young people and millennials, telling those Bernie folks they just need to get in line and maligning Bernie Sanders,” she said. “And that is not what we need.”
“In my opinion, we don’t need white people leading the Democratic Party right now,” she continued.
“The Democratic party is diverse, and it should be reflected as so in our leadership and throughout the staff, at the highest levels. From the vice chairs to the secretaries all the way down to the people working in the offices at the DNC.”
“I think we need a robust discussion about this and I think we need to hear more from all the candidates,” she added.
“Jaime Harrison of South Carolina, he’s great, too. He’s done real party building, but everybody doesn’t necessarily know Jaime and they want to know what it is that he stands for. So I want to hear more from everybody.”
“I’m here for the millennials and the brown folks,” Sanders concluded.
That was November 2016. Fast forward to April 2019 and The Associated Press was carrying this little tidbit.
“Joe Biden has hired Symone Sanders, a prominent African American political strategist, as a senior adviser to his newly launched presidential campaign,” the AP reported.
“The move adds a younger diverse voice to Biden’s cadre of top advisers, which has been dominated by older white men. It suggests Biden is seeking to broaden his appeal to a new generation of Democrats.”
Yes, Sanders — who just a few years ago was saying we needed to overhaul the Democratic Party along identitarian lines — is now saying that what America needs is an old white guy who’s said some very un-PC things about race during his career.
And it’s not as if she didn’t have choices.
“Sanders was recruited by numerous 2020 candidates, including Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, California Sen. Kamala Harris and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker,” the AP reported.
“Bernie Sanders notably did not ask her to come back after working on his 2016 campaign.”
So, what’s she been seen doing recently?
Arguing that Republicans bringing up Hunter Biden — a poster child for white privilege, given that he seemingly owes most of the opportunities in his adult life to the fact that his father was in a station of power — will only hurt their cause in 2020.
“In a Biden White House, unlike in a Donald Trump White House, Vice President Biden’s children will not have offices in the West Wing, they will not sit in on Cabinet meetings as though they are high-ranking elected officials, and they won’t have any foreign business deals,” Sanders said, according to Time.
“Donald Trump cannot say that.”
Righty-o. But what about Sanders’ belief that it was high time the Democrats stopped having white people in their leadership?
Surely she didn’t just mean at the head of the DNC. The fact that Tom Perez is now the chairman of that body doesn’t mean it’s time to move on.
And what does it say that the top four people in the RealClearPoitics polling average for the 2020 Democratic nomination are white people?
That’s right — Biden, Warren, Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg currently have nearly 74 percent support combined. Apparently, the voters don’t agree with Symone Sanders on white Democrats being in leadership positions.
Or are they really the racist ones?
Symone Sanders is a perfect example of how out of touch Democrats are with their voters in terms of identity politics.
It hurt them in 2016. It’ll hurt them again in 2020.
Of course, Sanders seems to have known this, given the fact that she jumped ship to campaign with an old white person.
By Biden’s sinking poll numbers, it looks like she may have chosen the wrong one.
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