How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S16, Ep11 How To Fail: Bernie Sanders on defeat, defiance and the struggles that shaped him (plus: the power of mittens)

Episode Date: March 15, 2023

PINCH ME, IS THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENING? Yes, yes it is. Ok. Deep breaths. For my season finale, I bring you the one and only Bernie Sanders: the longest-serving independent member of Congress in American history; unofficial leader of the US progressive movement and a two-time former Presidential candidate.He joins me to talk about his failed attempts to win the Democratic Party nomination, his failure to make his high school basketball team and the time he unwittingly went viral for wearing a pair of mittens to President Biden's inauguration. It's a conversation that will make you think and possibly make you angry (but that, as he explains, can be a good thing).It was an honour to meet Senator Sanders and although he doesn't much like talking about himself, I gave it my best shot. I think this is probably his most personal interview yet. I found his reflections on how his childhood shaped his political outlook really fascinating. And I posed so many questions about whether he cries and where he puts his disappointment that he actually asked me if it was a therapy session. My answer? 'Basically, yes.' He had the good grace to laugh.--Bernie Sanders's new book, It's Ok To Be Angry About Capitalism is out now and available to order here.--My new book, FRIENDAHOLIC: Confessions of a Friendship Addict, is published on 30th March and is now available to preorder - at half price - here.--How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted and produced by Elizabeth Day. To contact us, email [e-mail]--Social Media:Elizabeth Day @elizabdayHow To Fail @howtofailpodBernie Sanders @berniesanders Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card, other conditions apply. Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, the podcast that celebrates the things that haven't gone right. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger. Because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and journalist Elizabeth Day, and every week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned

from failure. Bernie Sanders is the longest-serving independent member of Congress in American history. He has served as the senior United States senator from Vermont since 2007. A self-described democratic socialist, Sanders is often seen as a leader of the progressive movement. He sought the Democratic Party nomination in 2016 and 2020. Although he finished in second place both times, Sanders revolutionized the way such campaigns were fought. Unlike the other major candidates, Sanders focused on small-dollar donations. He raised $1.5 million within 24 hours of his official announcement in 2016. His rallies were attended by tens of thousands of people,

many of them working-class Americans, who finally believed their voices were being heard. Sanders was born and raised in Brooklyn with an older brother, Larry. Their father immigrated from Poland to New York City in 1921 and found work as a paint salesman. Many of their extended family died in the Holocaust. It was a personal history that informed his politics. At the University of Chicago, Sanders joined the Young People's Socialist League and took part in civil rights and anti-war protests. He was elected mayor of Burlington, Vermont in 1981. In his new book, It's Okay to be Angry About Capitalism, Sanders takes on the 1% and calls out an economic system that, he says, is rigged against the rest of us.

They say that the older you get, the more conservative you become, he writes. Well, that's not me. The older I get, the angrier I become. Senator Bernie Sanders, welcome to How to Fail. It's a pleasure to be with you. It's an honour. Can I ask you when you first remember being angry at unfairness? Well, it goes way back.

It goes back to when I was a kid. I was a good athlete and around other good athletes. And a young man in my school got the award for being the best athlete in the school. And he wasn't the best athlete. And I think his parents had connections and that made it happen. And that seemed to be unfair. Do you think that there's a difference between male anger and female anger? I honestly haven't given it a lot of thought and I suspect that there is. But I think that, you know, venting one's anger in the appropriate ways is an important part of

being alive. That it is not a good idea simply to be sitting on that anger because a lot of bad things happen when you do that. Have you ever sat on your anger? Sure, I have. Absolutely. And you know, you tend toward depression when you do that and alienating yourself from the people around you. So I think it's not a good idea to be crazy angry all the time, but it's not a bad idea in a constructive way to vent your anger. It's a good idea to focus it, isn't it, against inequality, as you do so brilliantly in this book? Well, this book is not just me being angry. It's that people have a right to be angry about injustice. And when you see, despite all the technology that's out there,

that has increased worker productivity, we should be saying, good, all that technology, I'm working fewer hours, I'm making more money, my standard of living has gone up. But that's not the case. That technology has significantly benefited the 1% at the expense of almost everybody else. And the reality, and I think why people should be angry, is that our middle class in the United States is declining. You have millions of people working for literally starvation, wages over 60% of America lives

paycheck to paycheck. Meanwhile, people on top are doing phenomenally well. And the extreme example of that injustice is what happened at the heart of the pandemic, is working people didn't have a choice, did they? They couldn't stay home behind their computers in some lovely apartment. They had to go to work. And tens of thousands died. go to work. And tens of thousands died, nurses died, and doctors died, and bus drivers died, and people who worked in

warehouses died, keeping the economy going. And meanwhile, during that same period, billionaires became much richer. You have a whole chapter in the book dedicated to the notion that billionaires should not exist. Yes. Why is that? Because I think from a moral perspective, it is wrong that so few have so much and so many have so little. In America, we have three people, one, two, three, who own more wealth than the bottom half of American society. The 1% owns more wealth than the bottom 92%. CEOs of major corporations make 400 times what their workers make. That inequality is simply unfair, and to my mind, it is immoral.

And also what it does is creates a culture where I fear that many young people think, hey, I don't want to be a great teacher. I don't want to be a great scientist. I don't want to be a good worker in general, whatever my profession may be. I got to focus on becoming a multi-billionaire. I don't like that culture. I think it's not constructive to the best of humanity. I can feel it in your voice that you feel deeply connected to a broader community. It's actually quite a rare quality, I think, in this day and age when people tend to be out for themselves. But I can feel that connection. It sort of drives you, that sense of community,

that sense for fighting for people who might not have a voice or at least not one that's been listened to. Where does that connection come from? It comes from my own childhood. I grew up in a family that didn't have very much money. And I saw what that did to me, and that's something that I've never forgotten. And the other thing is, when you're a good politician, and I think I'm a good politician, and you go out and you talk to people. And when you run for president of the United States,

you talk to thousands of people. So you sit in people's living rooms, you sit at meetings with people, and they tell you what happens to them when they can't afford health care. I remember meetings, a young woman dealing with cancer who had no health insurance. What does that mean? People who lost loved ones because they couldn't afford prescription drugs. People are trying to raise a family on $12 an hour. If you have any empathy at all, you hear those things, and you say that that is not right. Meanwhile, billionaires, I work in Washington, D.C.,

and our lobbies are filled up, our hallways are filled up with lobbyists who want more tax breaks for billionaires. They want this, they want that. And ordinary working people are struggling to keep their heads above water. That makes me angry. You mentioned your childhood there and not having a lot of money, and your father came across from Poland and was a paint salesman. But I understand that a lot of your extended family were killed in the Holocaust.

Yes, that's right. Those two things, the lack of money and the feeling that fascism is around the corner and has a devastating impact, are they the two things that you think really shaped your childhood? I think so. Yeah. I think those two factors, knowing as a young person that my father's family was wiped out by Hitler, shaped my feelings about what we now call white nationalism, if you like. What that type of disgusting prejudice, in that case, anti-Semitism, other cases, racism, whatever it may be, can do to a culture and do to people.

So yeah, those events were very significant in shaping my political views. Other cases, racism, whatever it may be, can do to a culture and do to people. So, yeah, those events were very significant in shaping my political views. So the question comes up, how does it happen? Germany was a cultured country, a great country. How does it happen that it falls prey to somebody like a Hitler? In my own country, why do so many people vote for a pathological liar like Donald Trump? Those are issues that I think about a lot. When you say that you didn't have lots of money,

how did that impoverishment show itself? What things were you aware of as a child? Well, you know, you're aware, first of all, maybe most significantly as a kid, you get upset when you hear your parents arguing all the time. And they did. My father came to the United States with no money at all. My mother was born in the United States. She had dreams, expectations, I think, that were greater than my father's. He was very content to make the living that he made.

We lived in a rent, what was called a rent-controlled apartment for lower-income families. And my mother wanted more, and there was a constant friction in the house and I think that impacts a young child hearing that bickering and then you know visible things like other kids have a nicer baseball glove or a nicer pair of sneakers nicer clothing you know you're aware of that as well you're a grandparent now and I wonder what you're like as a as a grandfather do you spoil your grandkids I guess we do do. But we are very fortunate. We have seven grandchildren. Thank God. They're beautiful kids and they're all doing well. Let's get on to your first failure. And before I do, I want to ask you a broader question. This podcast obviously is called How to Fail. How much do you think politics has failed the normal?

Is this podcast failing, by the way? Ironically, this podcast is doing quite well. But if it fails, at least it will be on brand. But do you think that politics has failed the individual? I wouldn't look at it like that. It's not politics per se. It is that for a wide variety of reasons in the US, and I expect the UK and many other countries, government is not responding to the legitimate needs of working families. So in my country, you have tens of millions of people who cannot afford healthcare, cannot afford the cost of housing, which got millions of families spending half of their income in housing, can't afford to send their kids to college, have seen their jobs disappear, are worried that their

kids are going to have a lower standard of living than they do. And they look to the government, and they rightfully believe, not intellectually, but instinctually, that in a democratic government, you're supposed to do something. Respond to my pain. I'm in trouble. What are you doing for me? And they look around, and they don't see much happening for them. They see the rich getting richer. They see politicians in America spending half their lives raising money for campaigns. And they're saying, who worries about me? And I believe that is a major crisis in the United States. And democracy will not succeed if people do not believe that government is capable of responding to their needs. Your perception of the United Kingdom, is it a similar perception?

I wish I could tell you I knew more. I mean, I know a little bit, obviously, about the politics, but I suspect there are significant similarities, that working people are living under enormous stress here, inflation is taking its toll, and working families are struggling to put food on the table and keep their families whole. So I suspect that there are a lot of similarities between our two countries. Let's get on to your first failure, which also isn't a failure and we'll come on to

why it isn't in a minute. But it's about the fact that you strove to win the Democratic Party nomination twice in 2016 and 2020 and didn't. Tell us about why you decided to run in 2016. I looked around me in 2016 and Hillary Clinton was the anointed candidate of the Democratic establishment. And I was looking around to see who was going to give a voice to a progressive vision for America and Clinton as a centrist. And who was going to give a voice to a progressive vision for America? And Clinton is a centrist. And who was going to speak out about the needs of working family, about the need to deal boldly with climate change to address many of the disparities that exist in American society?

And there wasn't anybody else. We talked around. There was a possibility of this person or that person. So I ended up running because I thought it was important to talk about issues that most politicians were not talking about. And when we started that campaign, we were like at, I don't know, 3%, 5% in the polls. But then it turned out that the more people were hearing my analysis and my vision, those numbers grew. And we ended up winning a great number of states and many millions of votes to everybody's surprise.

And you also raised a phenomenal amount of money from individual donations. We transformed campaign fundraising in America. One of the crises that we face in the United States, and it's different here in the UK, is as a result of a very bad Supreme Court decision called Citizens United. Billionaires can literally spend as much money as they want on campaigns. That's not democracy. So you've got billionaires who say, hey, look, I'm worth $5 billion. I'll spend a few hundred million dollars to make sure candidates who represent my interests get elected, and I'll spend more money to defeat candidates who I don't like. That is horrendous. Now, I don't take any

campaign money from what they call super PACs, corporate PACs, but we had to raise a lot of money, and we did it in a way that no one had done it before, by small individual contributions through the internet. So we raised several hundred million dollars in 2016, averaging $27 a contribution, which is, for American politics, trust me, it's a very low number. And that is a transformation, as you say, of the political system, as is the fact that when you went to your talks and your rallies, as you say, hundreds and thousands of people would turn up. Collectively, not in one event.

But we had rallies of 25,000, 30,000 people. And I think what happened is to the establishment's shock and dismay, it turns out that there were a lot of people who did not want simple little incremental changes. They were disgusted with a society in which the rich got richer and the middle class continued to shrink, a society in which we were not beginning to effectively address climate change, a society where millions of people were working for starvation wages. So we raised these issues and others about income and wealth inequality, about the decline of the middle class in a way that no one had done in a great many years. And you know what? A lot of working people, young people said, that's right.

Bernie is right. So it took the entire establishment to defeat us. And when you take on a political establishment and a corporate establishment and a media establishment, that's pretty tough. But we ran a campaign, I think, that was transformative for American society. When you look now at the election of Donald Trump, do you feel that as a personal failure? I wouldn't look at it that way. What Trumpism is about is, I think, the failure of the Democratic Party. And to the degree that I'm involved in that, I guess you could blame me for it too. But I think, as I mentioned a moment ago, people have, in a democratic society, have

the expectation that when they are hurting, when they are in pain, their government, that is their government, right? It's not a king or a queen. This is their government, should be responding to their pain. And we have not done that. And when therefore people say, look, if the Democrats who talk about being representative of working families, they don't do it, I'm going to go to this other guy. I don't agree with him on this. He's a liar. He's this and he's that. But he's a tough guy. Maybe he'll shake up the system

and do something for me. So I think Trump's victory was more an indication of the failure of the Democratic Party than of people thinking that his brilliant ideas like giving tax breaks to the rich was the right thing to do. Do you see it as a failure of the Republican Party too? Well, that's a good question. And then you have to define what you mean by the Republican Party. Trump crushed the old Republican establishment. The old Republican establishment was corporate America, the bankers, big money interests. Then he brushed them aside and he started talking to working class people. And he made the Republican Party from what used to be a conservative center-right party into a right-wing extremist party. conservative sent the right party into a right-wing extremist party.

So talking about 2016 specifically, when you realized that you weren't going to win the nomination, how does that feel on a personal level? How did you feel about that? Well, we started off thinking that the path to victory would be incredibly difficult. We were taking on everybody. But we gained momentum and we did very well. So obviously losing was a real disappointment. No one, I think, likes to lose. What do you do when you're disappointed? Well, in this case, it wasn't very hard. In this case, Clinton was running against Trump and Trump is somebody who is a pathological liar,

who does not believe in democracy, does not believe in the rule of law. So to me, it was a no-brainer that I had to do everything I can to help Hillary Clinton win, and I worked very hard on her campaign. Do you ever cry? Occasionally, yes. Is that a moment that you would cry, or are you able to use that fuel to energize your next move? I could take the feat. But it was sad to see other people being really disappointed

who worked so very hard on that campaign. Yeah. So in between 2016 and 2020, a lot of stuff happened. But for you personally, you had a major health scare in 2019. You had a heart attack, which you describe in your book in many ways as more of a psychological blow than a physical one. I have, thank God, been blessed with good health my whole life. I literally cannot remember the last day I took off because of illness. And some miraculous reason I have so far managed to avoid COVID.

You know, I don't know how that's happened. So I've always been healthy and worked very, very hard. And it was a great shock. I mean, the heart attack did not cause me. I didn't collapse on the floor. I didn't breathe in pain. It was a shock to my system that my body had failed me. That was the first time in my life that had happened. And are you aware now of the need to conserve your energy? Yeah, I am. I'm not doing it right now, but... Well, I'm very glad you're not. On this trip. But as you get older, I think you cannot do all that you could have done when you were younger. So you have to kind of harness your energy in a more systemic way and know

how much you can do effectively. Does that scare you? Because I get the impression you feel there's so much left to be done and possibly not enough time to do it. No, something like that, yes. Yeah. So what did your wife, Jane, think when you said, actually, 2020's on the horizon, I'm going to try again? I think she had ambivalent feelings.

I mean, I think she understood the importance from a political point of view that we run, that our ideas prevail, that we do what we can to change the country. On a personal level, I think she was probably less than enthusiastic about it, what it meant to family and privacy and so forth. And is that a difficult juggle?

Yeah, it is. It's not like you're an unknown academic writing a research paper. It means you're out there. It's not a day goes by when I don't get attacked for one thing or another or deal with terrible lies and all that. I get used to it, but for the family and so forth, it becomes a little bit hurtful. Yes, very hurtful.

I can imagine that. You are immensely popular with the younger generations, to the extent that everyone in this office today, the Gen Zers, have made a special effort to come in. So we got them to work. We got them to work. You've achieved the impossible. They all want to have their photo taken with you.

And I think there's something so beautiful about that. And I've been thinking a lot about what your appeal is. And I think it's because you are so real and you're saying things in an unvarnished way that is so clearly impassioned. And they're the generation that have grown up with so many filters on Instagram and so much fake news that it's actually a relief to them to see someone who speaks their mind. What do you think the connection is? Honestly, the honest truth is, I mean, you're

quite right. In both elections, we won this overwhelming support of young people. And by young people, I don't mean 20-year-olds. I mean people up to 40 or even older than that. And from a political perspective, that's very significant because that is the future of my country. So if young people are supportive of what we are fighting for, I'm optimistic about the future. But I have to tell you that we did not spend one second, there was never one meeting where people sat in a room and said,

how do we appeal to young people? What should we be saying? Do a poll on young people. Do a focus group on young people. Not the case at all. Not one second of that. And you just go out and you do your thing. And it turns out that for a whole lot of reasons, the younger generation in America, and I think in the UK it may be similar, is the most anti-racist, anti-sexist,

anti-xenophobic, anti-homophobic generation in history, and also a generation that is struggling economically. So everything being equal, if we do not change it, and I can't speak for UK, but I can speak for America, the younger generation will have a lower standard of living than their parents. Now, that's pretty weird, isn't it? I mean, the expectation is that, you know, for a parent, we want our kids to do better than we do. That is not the case for many families in America. So these kids who have gone through,

young people have gone through the Wall Street meltdown of 2008, many of them leaving college deeply in debt. The cost of housing in many parts of America is off the charts. The wages that they're earning are not particularly good. And so incrementalism is not something that they're interested in. They're saying, hey, this system ain't working for us. All right. We want a different type of system. And I think that was the grounds for the appeal. Do they remind you of you when you were that age? Because I know when you were at the University of Chicago, you really shaped your

political consciousness and you went on civil rights marches and you were a conscientious objector against the Vietnam War. Do you feel that there's a connection there? I mean, it's a different world. But yes, I do see that. I see in the young people a passion for justice. And I'll tell you, some of the most meaningful moments for me is just getting up there and talking to many, many thousands of young people, black and white and Latino and Asian American and gay and straight, and just looking out there and seeing what America could be, of wonderful young people who wanted America based on justice. And that, on a personal level, becomes very, very moving. People say, oh, Bernie, you inspired me.

Well, that inspires me to see that reality out there. What do most people say when they recognize you in the street? What's the most common thing that they will say to you? Well, most of the time it's positive. Not always. Yes. I remember I was walking down the street in Washington, D.C., and some guy is driving by.

He says, Bernie! I turn around. You! Bah, bah, bah, bah. I won't repeat it on the podcast. But most of the time people are very, very friendly and, you know, saying nice things. Peyton, it's happening.

We're finally being recognized for being very online. It's about damn time. I mean, it's hard work being this opinionated. And correct. You're such a Leo. All the time.

So if you're looking for a home for your worst opinions, if you're a hater first and a lover of pop culture second. Then join me, Hunter Harris. And me, Peyton Dix. The host of Wondery's newest podcast, Let Me Say This. As beacons of truth and connoisseurs of mass, we are scouring the depths of the internet so you don't have to. We're obviously talking about the biggest gossip and celebrity news.

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Watch new episodes on YouTube or listen to Let Me Say This ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest? This is a time of great foreboding. These words supposedly uttered by a king over 800 years ago, these words, supposedly uttered by a king over 800 years ago, set in motion a chain of gruesome events and sparked cult-like devotion across the world. I'm Matt Lewis.

I'm Matt Lewis Join us as we unwrap the enigma and get to the heart of what really happened to Thomas Beckett by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit So talking about youth we're going back in time for your second failure to you as a young man when you were at high school and you were cut from the basketball team. Yes. So you are a tall man. What's your height?

Six feet. Yeah. And you were good at basketball. Tell us the story. Well, I was a good basketball player, but I grew up in a community where there were a lot of other good basketball players. So the elementary school, we call elementary school, we won the Borough Championship. We were one of the best, and I was on the team. And I went to high school, which was a very good basketball school, with the hope that I would play on the varsity. Again, one of the better teams in New York City. And I initially made what we call the junior varsity again one of the better teams in New York City and I initially

made what called the junior varsity I don't know what you call it here but there's a varsity and junior varsity younger you're on the junior varsity and I got my beautiful uniform number 10 very shiny slept in it I did I loved that uniform what color was it it was gold and white it was very nice then when there's a, the coach said, well, sorry, you're not going to be on the team anymore. So that was very disappointing. So that meant that I was not going to make the varsity team.

That was a failure, if you like. I was good, but not good enough, at least the coach thought that. And then I had to decide, as somebody who was interested in athletics and participated in athletics well what do I do next well I'd always been a pretty good always had good endurance you know I was a good long distance used to run around the block and stuff and so I'll go off of the track team we'll see how that goes and it turned out that I was pretty good at it and became one of the better long distance runners in New York. Where the failure was not making the basketball team, but where that became converted into a success story

was that being a good runner and winning races and getting medals and all that stuff maybe gave me a sense of confidence that I might not otherwise have had. I've got this image of the young Bernie Sanders running around Brooklyn. Is that what you used to do, run around the block there? Well, you don't run all over Brooklyn, but that's many miles. But we used to run in cross-country, which you do here, of course. In those days in high school, it was two and a half miles.

And then I was a good miler and a half mile, mostly a miler. I think young people, obviously, we're all in the process of finding out who we really are. That's one of the purposes of life. And when you're young, it's quite difficult to differentiate between what people are telling you you are and how you feel inside. When you were rejected for that basketball team, was there a sense that you internalized that rejection? Did you take it personally? It's interesting to me that it's still uppermost in your consciousness. It was painful, sure. I loved basketball and very much wanted to make diversity and it was a very harsh blow that I was not going to be able to do that. No ifs, buts and maybes, so it hurt. On the other hand, as I said, getting on the track team and eventually becoming captain of the team was a positive experience. So how old were you at this time? 15, 16.

So what was 15, 16-year-old Bernie like, other than sleeping in your basketball uniform? Oh, is this a therapy session here? Yes, basically. I don't know. You know, I was a fairly typical kid, I think. I spent half my life playing ball and being on the track team and looking out for girls and doing some studies. Nothing out of ordinary, I think.

And it was just you and your brother, is that right? Yeah, my mother, father, and my brother and myself. Did you get on with your brother as a child? I did. He was very much a mentor to me, opened up a lot of doors in my life. My father had dropped out of school. I can't remember what it was at 14 or something when he, and he left Poland at 17. And my mother, and by the way, just on that issue, some years ago, my brother and I and our wives went back to the town that he was

born in, in Poland. And it really, you know, I know, you know, people say these things all the time, but you imagine somebody 17 years of age, can't speak a word of English, don't have a nickel in your pocket coming to the United States of America. Man, that is a very brave thing to do. And that's true of so many immigrants who were in the same boat as my dad was. We grew up in a house where there weren't a lot of books. My mom graduated high school. You know, we had a few books in the house. But my brother brought books into the house and exposed me to ideas that I'm sure I otherwise would not have learned about. He was involved in politics when he was at Brooklyn College in New York City.

So, you know, it just kind of rubbed off a little bit on me. Did you want to be a politician when you were young? No. No, not at all. Did you know what you wanted to be? No, I didn't. I think maybe work in a library. I like books.

Maybe a social worker, I think, was what I was thinking about. For me, you know, kids very often ask me in the United States, well, you know, how did you get involved in politics? And the assumption is, how do I get elected to be, you know, a governor, a senator, a member of Congress, president? You know, how do you do that? And I can tell you with 100% assurance that when I was young, that thought, zero, never crossed my mind.

So my involvement in politics was ideas that I knew were not going to be achievable. I mean, so we became involved when I was a young person. The war in Vietnam was going on. And I became somewhat involved in the anti-war efforts, marched in demonstrations and so forth. And when I moved to Vermont as a young man in my early 20s, I became part of a political party, which was a small political party that focused on opposition to the war and economic justice.

And I ran for office and got 2% of the vote. And then I got 1% of the vote. So you talk about failure, that's a pretty big failure. 4% of the vote, 6%, and then I stopped running. And I eventually became elected mayor of Burlington. You were never tempted to give up? But the point is, I didn't get involved in politics to get elected. Yes.

I got involved in politics because, in this case, opposition to the war in Vietnam, the economic injustice, that's kind of what motivated me. And the elected stuff was the latter half of that. Your passion and your ideas came first. Yes, exactly. came first. Can I ask you, before we move on to your third failure, do you feel a responsibility to your father and to his family and everything that represents to live a certain kind of life, to live a big life that makes change? Well, I think to my mom as well, who died at the age of 46. I'm so sorry. And I think it's true for most people. You hopefully remember where you came from. In a sense, the courage of my father to leave the poverty and

the anti-Semitism in Poland at that time to come to the United States. And my mother to raise two kids as best she could without money. I do think of them, but I think of so many other families in the same boat. And I see us all in that same boat of people struggling for a good life in a society which can do a lot better job in providing that quality of life for people. Senator Sanders, your third failure. Wow, we're running up the failures.

I know, it's the final one, don't worry. All right, the last one. Well, it's not my last one. After this, it's all success. Your third failure is failing to realize that wearing a pair of Vermont mittens at the Biden inauguration would make you into an iconic viral meme. I was so happy when I discovered there's a whole section in your book about this. So tell us the story from your perspective.

Well, there's not much to say. I mean, this is the modern world that we're living in. This is what social media is about. I didn't do anything. All I did was on a cold day, wear a warm coat. Do you wear a warm coat on a cold day? A hundred percent. And I grew up in Ireland, so I know that temperature is king.

All right. And you might on a cold day wear a pair of mittens, right? Not mittens because I need my fingers too much. That sounds weird. So you wear gloves. Okay, fine. And if you were invited to an outdoor inauguration, right, and the temperature was cold and maybe it was going to snow,

you might dress warmly, right? Yes. And if you are in the middle of a pandemic where the authorities there tell you you have to sit separately from other people, you're going to do that, right? So all that happened is I did what anybody else would do, wear a warm coat and a pair of mittens, put my mask on and sit as everybody else was aside from everybody else. I didn't do anything. That's all that I did. And some guy from Agence Press, whatever it is, took a photograph. That's it. I didn't do it.

Talk to him. He did it. I just sat there. And later on after the inauguration, I went back to the office, and my press secretary said, Senator, something is going on here. This photograph is going viral. And, of course, it really went crazy. And what is interesting about

it is my campaign used that photograph i went to work on a some kind of complicated financial deal or something but we worked with the company that did the photograph and we were able to put it on t-shirts and sweatshirts and we sold them and we made millions of dollars which we used to provide assistance to lower income people in Vermont so the happy ending to that story is that millions of dollars were raised to serve low-income people in Vermont tell us about the mittens because yes they were knitted by someone yeah they were you know very often people will send me things very very generously very kindly we had people sent books in the mail and this in the mail and that in the mail.

And a woman in a town near where I live sent me a pair of mittens. They were really nice. And that's what I was wearing. I wear them quite frequently. So nothing unusual for me. Do you still have them? I sure do. Have any museums been in touch wanting to?

Well, that's what I, my wife does not allow me to wear them. Good for your wife. She's put them away someplace. Honestly, I'm not quite sure where they are in the house. Some drawer someplace, but I've had to get another pair. Yes. In years to come, you could auction them and make even more. That's what she. Do you have any idea why things become viral memes? What do you think it is about that image? The answer to your question is I don't know why things become viral memes. What do you think it is about that image? The answer to your question is I don't know why things become viral.

I think in that one, we were at that moment and are today going through some really tough times. When the virus hit us, we didn't have a vaccine. People frightened. It was a tough time. So I think just somehow the image of a u.s senator standing there in a very non-fancy coat with a pair of mittens appealed to people and you know maybe reminded folks of a sense of normalcy which we were not experiencing that's my feelings others

may have another perception that's a beautiful answer what do you think of social media because again it's one of those things that has enormously helped you but i don't get the impression that you ever go out in order to pursue clicks and likes i am not much into technology myself as my wife will tell you I have a hard time turning on the damn television. But I'm smart enough to recognize that technology has tremendous advantages. And as I write in the book, where social media was enormously important for us, is the ideas that I espouse really don't get reported much or covered much in the corporate media. They're just billionaires on the media and they're not particularly sympathetic to those ideas. I've got a whole chapter on that issue.

But what we were able to do with live streaming, what we're doing right now, you and I are sitting in a relatively small room, right? And at some point, these videos are going to go out and can be seen by God knows how many people. And this is not an expensive proposition, right? This is not a million dollar production. So anybody, even with a phone camera can do something. That's pretty revolutionary. So what we were able to do is hold rallies where in the old days, you got a couple of thousand people out to rally, that's great. Well, we would have a couple of thousand people out to a rally, that's great. Well, we would have a couple of thousand people out to a rally, but we live streamed it. And hundreds of thousands of people would suddenly hear unfiltered. And just as we're talking now, this is unfiltered. No broadcaster is going to interpret what we're saying. It gets out there. Well, my speeches were able to get out there

directly to the people in a way that the view that I was espousing very, very rarely got out. Very rarely would somebody hear a 45-minute or hour speech talking about the issues that I was talking about. So suddenly, adding it all together, millions of people were able to hear that. That was pretty revolutionary. Now, there's a bad side. And we still use social media a whole lot in my office, both in the Senate office, which is nonpolitical,

and the campaign office. I don't have to tell you what the negative part of social media is about, and that is a lot of the disinformation and lies and hate language that gets out there. So that's the pluses and minuses. You mentioned that you were rubbish at technology and you struggle to turn on the TV. When that TV is turned on, what do you watch on it? Not much. I got to be honest with you and tell you, I'm not a TV. When that TV is turned on, what do you watch on it? Not much. I've got to be honest with you and tell you I'm not a great fan. And I'll tell you one of the things that I just don't like, maybe I'm the only person in America who feels this way, I can't stand being bombarded with commercials.

Yeah. You know, so we had, you know, what the Super Bowl is, right, in the United States. Our football is different than your football. Yes. I like football and these guys are great athletes and so forth. But even that event of great athletes, great game, is hard to watch when it's interrupted one game 50, 60, 70 times

with 30-second commercials. That kind of drives me a little bit nuts. That's one of the reasons I don't watch TV. Did you watch the Rihanna performance? No, I did not. Senator Sanders. Was it good? It was excellent.

My grandchildren were there. We had a lot of people over. No, I heard it was really good. What do you do to relax? Is that a word that resonates with you? Yeah, we all have our own, you know, approaches to relaxation. I spend time with my grandchildren. I enjoy that very much.

I do a reasonable amount, not enough, but a reasonable amount of walking. A friend of mine and I, when I'm back in Burlington weekends, go for long walks. I drag one of my staff guys to go walking with me around DC, around Washington a little bit. And I enjoy that. Okay. Do you meditate? One of my daughters actually teaches yoga in Arizona. So I am exposed to the ideas. But no, I would not say that I meditate. It has been such a privilege talking to you. I wonder how this experience has been for you. What's it like talking specifically about failure for 45 minutes? Well, I'm not all that comfortable. You did a better job than most.

Thank you. In getting me to talk about myself. I am not a great fan of talking about myself because too much of American politics is about the individual rather than the needs of the people. But yeah, this was a very good interview, and thank you very much. That was so kind of you. That's very interesting. Before I let you go, that idea of… See, now I've got you going again, right? I know.

Now you've made me think of something else. You're absolutely right. I understand there's a bigger concept at play here, which makes you uncomfortable talking about yourself, because you think of everything in terms of community. Not everything. It's just in American… For example, in American politics, somebody says, well, which candidate for president would you like to have a beer with? All right,

who do you kind of feel close to? That's okay. Who do you like? But what is that person's view on climate change, on healthcare, on inequality? Oh, that's not important. Well, the truth is, it is important. That's why you're supposed to be running for office. So there's too much discussion on personality. I'm not a great fan of that. Do you think you'll ever run for president again? I can't get into that.

OK, fine. Well, if you don't, come over to the UK and maybe run to be our prime minister. We'd be so lucky to have you. That's very kind of you. Senator Bernie Sanders, thank you so, so much for coming on how to fail thank you if you enjoyed this episode of how to fail with elizabeth day i would so appreciate it if you could rate review and subscribe apparently it helps other people know that we exist