In a Huffington Post article on Monday, actor and liberal activist Danny Glover lunged at New York Times columnist Paul Krugman for his “one-man war against Bernie Sanders” “in column after blog post after column,” especially when he went "over the edge” in an article on Friday.
“It is interesting that he has chosen to repeatedly smear Bernie, ad nauseum, rather than try to promote qualities about Hillary Clinton or her record,” Glover stated before noting that Krugman “really owes Bernie and his millions of voters and supporters an apology” for his most recent column.
Glover asserted Krugman “argues that Bernie does not consider African-Americans to be 'real Democrats,' which implies that Bernie is a racist.”
“What is the evidence that he offers for such a serious charge?” the actor asked.
“Over the past week, Mr. Sanders has declared that Mrs. Clinton leads only because she has won in the 'Deep South,' which is a 'pretty conservative part of the country,'” Glover noted. “The tally so far, he says, 'distorts reality.'”
Glover continued:
Let’s ignore that he exaggerates what Bernie actually said. For Krugman, ... Hillary “won big in the South” by “getting an overwhelming majority of Black voters.”
This means that Bernie’s brief statements are an “effort to delegitimize” these voters, saying they are not “real Democrats” and “shouldn’t count.”
“But this is nonsense,” the liberal activist grumbled.
“The white voters who would vote for a progressive, populist candidate like Sanders are lacking in the Democratic primaries in Southern states,” Glover noted. “This is a reasonable observation and does not imply in any way that African-American voters are not 'real Democrats.'”
“Of course, these states are conservative, by most measures -- no secret there,” the liberal actor stated. “Now, white people are still the majority of the country, including in the South, and some white people are not conservative -- 40 percent of white voters voted for President Obama in 2012.”
“Other white voters, including some non-rich and working-class whites, may have a mix of inconsistent views but will vote for someone like Bernie in a Democratic primary because they can see he is more likely to defend their interests than Hillary,” he noted.
Those “interests” include: voting “against commercial agreements like NAFTA [the North American Free Trade Agreement] or the TPP [Trans-Pacific Partnership] that push down wages and export good-paying jobs; against the corruption of our political system and the destructive influence of Wall Street banks.” Another topic is voting “against the massive redistribution of income that has made the United States a vastly more unequal society than it was 30 years ago,” he stated.
“On these and other issues, Bernie and Hillary have very, very different track records,” Glover asserted.
He then continued:
Hillary has taken tens of millions of dollars from corporations that are on the other side of the issues that these white voters care about.
Perhaps that is why 84 percent of Democratic voters, in a recent poll, consider Bernie to be “honest and trustworthy,” a 28-point lead over Hillary.
To overtake Clinton, “Sanders would have to win the remaining contests by an average 13-point margin, a number that will almost surely go up after the New York primary, even if he does much better than current polls suggest,” Krugman stated. “That’s not impossible, but it’s highly unlikely.”
Nevertheless, it is outrageous for Krugman to smear Bernie Sanders in this way, on the basis of Krugman’s own personal -- and not very believable -- interpretation of a couple of sentences stated by the candidate,” Glover declared.
“Bernie has been fighting for civil rights and against racism since the 1960s,” the actor indicated, “including his arrest for protesting racial discrimination in housing at the University of Chicago in 1963.”
In addition, the columnist “has repeatedly attacked Sanders for rude comments or emails he has received from people that he describes with the media-invented pejorative 'Bernie bros.'” Glover noted.
“If some random pro-Hillary Internet trolls criticize me for this piece,” he stated, “rest assured that I will not try to attribute blame to Hillary Clinton, or to her campaign.”
“It’s not surprising that Krugman has to go to such great lengths to discredit Bernie,” he continued.
Glover then stated: “Someone who has been in politics for 40 years and has no dirt on him; who is not getting a dollar from corporations or SuperPACS but is funding his campaign with a record 6 million contributions averaging 27 dollars each; who has been fighting consistently for the same progressive goals throughout his political career -- this is a rare politician indeed, and not so easy to tarnish.”
“But really, Krugman should apologize this time,” the actor/activist concluded. “He has gone too far.”
