AT HIS first rally for the US 2020 presidential bid, Senator Bernie Sanders promised to defeat Donald Trump, calling him ‘the most dangerous president in modern American history’.
On Saturday in New York City Sanders was cheered by a crowd at Brooklyn College, where he studied for a year. Greeted with chanting and banners reading his name, the senator criticised Trump’s approach to immigration.
Sanders contrasted his spare upbringing with Trump’s privileged youth as the son of a New York real estate developer.
‘I did not come from a family that gave me a $200,000 allowance every year beginning at the age of three.’ Sanders said. ‘I did not have a father who gave me millions of dollars to build luxury skyscrapers, casinos and country clubs,’ Sanders added in another dig at Trump.
The first weekend on the campaign trail signalled Sanders’ emphasis on expanding his support among minority voters, who he struggled to connect with during his 2016 campaign.
Sanders already has shown his fundraising ability this time around, as the campaign said last Tuesday that he had raised about $10 million in the first week. He promised that his campaign would say ‘loudly and clearly that the underlying principles of our government will not be greed, hatred and lies’.
Yesterday, Sanders headed to Selma, Alabama, to mark the anniversary of the 1965 clash known as ‘Bloody Sunday’ and will also visit Chicago, where he graduated from college and was active in civil rights protests.
In 2016 campaigning as a socialist he ran Hillary Clinton close before surrendering to her campaign.
