This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Before we go to break, on Wednesday, just before Bernie Sanders announced, but it did look like he was about to pull out of the presidential race, I asked political dissident, linguist and author Noam Chomsky about his assessment of the Bernie Sanders campaign in this time of the coronavirus pandemic.
NOAM CHOMSKY: If Trump is reelected, it’s a indescribable disaster. It means that the policies of the past four years, which have been extremely destructive to the American population, to the world, will be continued and probably accelerated. What this is going to mean for health is bad enough. I just mentioned the Lancet figures. It will get worse. What this means for the environment or the threat of nuclear war, which no one is talking about but is extremely serious, is indescribable.
Suppose Biden is elected. I would anticipate it would be essentially a continuation of Obama — nothing very great, but at least not totally destructive, and opportunities for an organized public to change what is being done, to impose pressures.
It’s common to say now that the Sanders campaign failed. I think that’s a mistake. I think it was an extraordinary success, completely shifted the arena of debate and discussion. Issues that were unthinkable a couple years ago are now right in the middle of attention.
The worst crime he committed, in the eyes of the establishment, is not the policy he’s proposing; it’s the fact that he was able to inspire popular movements, which had already been developing — Occupy, Black Lives Matter, many others — and turn them into an activist movement, which doesn’t just show up every couple years to push a leader and then go home, but applies constant pressure, constant activism and so on. That could affect a Biden administration.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s activist, public intellectual, world-renowned linguist, Noam Chomsky. We’ll spend the hour with him on Friday on Democracy Now!
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, the racial disparities. Who’s dying in this pandemic? Stay with us.
Rcvvchase on April 9th, 2020 at 18:38 UTC »
Noam.... still kickin it. It appears he’s even gone from gray to full on “Noam the White”
g_j_1_o on April 9th, 2020 at 17:27 UTC »
Chomsky is like Gandalf now
Meta_Digital on April 9th, 2020 at 16:44 UTC »
This is what Chomsky has been saying for decades now. Real political change doesn't happen simply by voting every few years - it happens through constant activism. The establishment would be thrilled if people just showed up and voted and that was that.
Sanders threatens that idea when he talks about movements outside of electoral movements. You don't see Biden encouraging activism. You certainly don't see Trump doing it. Sanders has been one of the few politicians to encourage voters to be more than just voters.