Bernie Sanders will Run as Independent in 2018
photo by Gage Skidmore
On Sunday evening, Sen. Bernie Sanders told Fox News that he plans on running for reelection in the Senate as an independent in 2018. The world is watching, given the speculation that he may run as a presidential candidate in 2020. Sanders isn’t going out of the spotlight anytime soon.
Sanders faced pressure to officially run as a Democrat. But recently a resolution failed in the Democratic National Committee, which would have compelled the Independent Senators Sanders and Angus King to run as Democrats when they seek reelection.
“I am an independent and I have always run in Vermont as an independent, while I caucus with the Democrats in the United States Senate. That’s what I’ve been doing for a long time and that’s what I’ll continue to do,” Sanders said.
The 76-year-old, of course, sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, but lost the nomination to the so-called moderate Hillary Clinton.
Sanders reminded viewers that’s he’s been an independent for a long time, despite his involvement with the Democratic party. “I’ve been an independent since the early 90s. I was a governor as an independent,” King told CNN. “That’s who I am.” At the Democratic National Committee, Sanders has frequently referred to the “one percent,” and he claims that one-tenth of the nation’s one percent owns as much as the bottom 90 percent.
On November 4, 2015 Sanders introduced the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act, which would have done exactly that—ended 80 some years of pointless cannabis prohibition in the United States.
Sanders said he would vote “yes” on a recreational cannabis bill. Reforming the failed “War on Drugs” is a centerpiece of his platform. “I’ve done marijuana twice in my life, when I was very young,” Bernie said in March 2016, during the thick of the 2016 race. “And what it did for me, is it made me cough a lot—that was my response, but I gather other people have had different experiences.”
