The Atlantic

It’s Foreign Policy That Distinguishes Bernie This Time

He’s challenging American exceptionalism in a far more radical way than his 2020 competitors are.
Source: Eric Thayer / Reuters

The conventional wisdom is that Bernie Sanders is a victim of his own success. His “populist agenda has helped push the party to the left,” declared The New York Times in its story about his presidential announcement. But in 2020, he may lose “ground to newer faces who have adopted many of his ideas.”

There’s an obvious truth here: From a $15 national minimum wage to Medicare for all to free college tuition, Sanders’s opponents have embraced policies that were considered radical when he first proposed them during the 2016 campaign. But what the misses is that there’s another policy realm where Sanders may find it easier to carve out

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