Is the Democratic Establishment Trying to Take Down Bernie?
Sanders supporters are still haunted by the ghosts of 2016’s primary battles
On Saturday, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders issued a sharp public rebuke to the Center for American Progress, an influential left-leaning think tank with significant ties to Hillary Clinton.
His letter, addressed to the board of the CAP and its associated action fund, took the group to task for articles published on ThinkProgress criticizing Sanders and fellow Democratic presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker. In particular, he slammed CAP executive director Neera Tanden, former policy director for Hillary Clinton and later domestic policy director for Barack Obama. She “repeatedly calls for unity,” he wrote, “while simultaneously maligning my staff and supporters and belittling progressive ideas.”
The group fired back. ThinkProgress is “editorially independent of both CAP and CAP Action and has been for years,” American Progress said in a statement, linking to a 2008 post about the same issue by the site’s former editor in chief, Faiz Shakir. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because Shakir was recently hired as the first Muslim campaign manager for a major presidential candidate: Bernie Sanders.
