Fusion’s Jorge Rivas just published an embarrassingly complimentary puff piece on Jane Sanders. Anyone reading the piece would come away thinking Ms. Sanders is a humble, compassionate and thoughtful humanitarian brimming with idea after idea on how to make the world better and more peaceful– that’s because that is exactly what Rivas wants you to think.
Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying journalists are not supposed to write profile stories, those focused primarily on personality. And frankly, I don’t know Ms. Sanders. She just may possess all the virtues Rivas emphasizes in his feature (I’ll reserve judgment).
But what are the odds that Rivas would ever do a similar puff piece about a GOP candidate’s spouse, like say Heidi Cruz? What’s more certain, given Fusion’s track record, is that if he ever did write a profile piece on a conservative spouse I’m convinced we would be hard-pressed to find anything close to being considered kind and gentle.
The photo of Sanders features her in a glowing smile with an angelic aura surrounding her meant to evoke positive sentiments about her. Nobody is fooled: it is classic propaganda through and through, deliberately promoting Bernie's candidacy.
Below are excerpts from the March 21, 2016 Fusion article “Jane Sanders’ Motorcycle Diaries”
Jane Sanders—a 65-year-old former college president, community organizer, and motorcycle enthusiast—has largely avoided the spotlight as her husband battles Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. But on a recent solo swing through Arizona, which holds its primary on Tuesday, Sanders showed why she might be the campaign’s last best chance to decisively win the Latino and Native American voters her husband needs to breathe new life into the race.
…Sanders sat down with 12 immigrants for a roundtable discussion organized by Puente Arizona. For close to an hour and a half, she asked questions and cried alongside undocumented immigrants, including teens who entered the country as unaccompanied minors seeking refuge. Sanders didn’t say much until all of them were done speaking.
“What you have endured is not right, and it is not the way we want to be as America,” Sanders told the room. It was 6:26 p.m., and she was running late to meet with a group of Native Americans. But there was still another group of immigrant rights leaders in the neighboring room waiting to greet her. So after wiping away her tears, Sanders put on her game face and walked across to the next room, where she encouraged a bigger group of undocumented immigrants to tell their U.S. citizen friends to vote for her husband.
Unlike her husband, who’s known for sticking to his policy points, Jane Sanders said she likes to wing it. She talks to crowds without teleprompters or notes. She’s briefed ahead of events, then improvises as she goes. “I can answer questions all day,” Sanders told me after a rally at the Arizona headquarters. “I want to be in the moment, talk to people and see what they need and speak to the reality in front of me. I speak extemporaneously—it’s just me.”
She met her first husband and fell in love with riding her motorcycle through the roads of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Gatlinburg… She bought the Bridgestone 60 Sport in 1969, she said, at a discounted price from someone who had won it on The Newlywed Game. At the time women constituted about 1% of motorcycle owners… When I asked Sanders whether she knew of other women who rode motorcycles, she said no. She had never thought about it that way… For her, unconventional choices were typical. “I didn’t know anyone who had a natural childbirth when I had my first child. I didn’t know anyone who breastfed when I had my first child,” she said. “I didn’t seem to think about where my path led. I didn’t worry about it being well-traveled.”
Unlike her husband, Jane Sanders travels without Secret Service agents, which means people can grab her for selfies whenever they feel like it. At the rally, there was no orderly line waiting for her. Instead, it was a swarm of admirers who had waited in the hot Arizona sun for hours. The senator’s wife maintained a smile.
