Bernie Sanders’ first rally in the Bay Area

By Alli Weseman, PHOTO EDITOR


Democratic Presidential Candidate and Senator of Vermont Bernie Sanders spoke to thousands of Bay Area residents during a rally at Fort Mason in San Francisco on March 23.
Sanders took the stage with the crowd cheering “Bernie.” He spoke on issues that he addressed during the 2016 Presidential Election including free college tuition, the student debt crises, raising the minimum wage to $15 and Medicare for all.
“The ideas that we were talking about when we began the campaign, those were ideas considered by the political establishment to be radical ideas, and they were rejected by mainstream politicians,” he said.
Sanders joked about ideas that he proposed two years ago being radical, but are now are being talked about by other Democratic Presidential Candidates, including Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren.
“Do you want to hear some radical ideas,” said Sanders to the crowd as they cheered him on. The ideas included raising the minimum wage to a living wage, guaranteeing healthcare to all, repairing America’s infrastructure, addressing climate change, legalizing marijuana, reforming the criminal justice and immigration systems.
“Democratic candidates from school board to president are talking about exactly these same issues,” said Sanders.
Prior to beginning his speech centered on justice, he addressed the decision of Attorney General William Barr to release a summary of the findings of the Mueller Report.
“I haven’t read the report yet, it hasn’t been made public. I have something in my email box. I’ll read it right after this. I know it’s a summary of the report. I don’t want a summary, I want the whole damn report because nobody, especially this president is above the law.”
He talked about his failed presidential campaign in 2016 where he was relatively unknown but found a strong base among millennials and progressives.
“When we first launched our campaign in 2015, very few people took our campaign seriously. On our opening day, we made page 19 of the New York Times and it went downhill from there.”
California will play an important role in the 2020 Presidential election as voters will cast their ballots on March 3, 2020, which is referred to as “Super Tuesday.” The state joins twelve other states that cast their ballot on the same day.
“We have come a long way in the last four years, now is the time to complete what we began. Now is the time to turn our vision and progressive agenda into reality. Now is the time to complete what we began.”
Sanders is confident heading into 2020 after Clinton won the Democratic nomination in 2016.
“I think we are going to win California. I think we are going to win the Democratic nomination,” said Sanders.