Senator Bernie Sanders appears to be having a mildly awkward week after resurfaced audio reminded everyone that, back in 2019, he said something that today sounds suspiciously out of place in large parts of the modern progressive movement.
Specifically, Sanders dared articulate the belief that candidates should be judged by merit rather than demographic categories.
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That clip came from a Vermont Public Radio interview during Sanders' presidential campaign, when Bernie (a 77-year-old white man at the time) was asked why Democratic voters should choose him over a younger, more "diverse" candidate, including a person of color.
Bernie's answer was unexpectedly rational, and hilariously anti-DEI.
Instead of pivoting into the language of representation, lived experience, or identity-based politics, Sanders responded with an argument that sounded strikingly close to the kind of colorblind meritocracy conservatives have been defending for years: people should be judged by their abilities, ideas, character, and qualifications rather than race, sex, sexual orientation, or age.
Who among us had Bernie Sanders as an anti-DEI activist on their bingo card?
Granted, this may be less about Bernie changing and more about the political universe around him shifting.
What was fairly standard center-left universalism in 2019 has become strictly forbidden in progressive activist circles, where "colorblindness" itself is sometimes criticized as naïve, unjust, or even complicit in structural inequity.
Which leaves Bernie in the slightly hilarious position of sounding, for 19 seconds at least, like the conservative uncle at Thanksgiving insisting we should stop worrying about having enough skin shades represented in the ER and just hire the surgeon who can remove the tumor.
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