March 2, 2019

Bernie Sanders Officially Kicks Off His 2020 Campaign With a Return to Brooklyn

Rumpled, rested, and ready to challenge “the most dangerous president in modern American history.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders arrives on stage before launching his 2020 presidential campaign in Brooklyn.Craig Ruttle/AP

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Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont kicked off his second presidential campaign at a rally Saturday just a few miles from the Brooklyn apartment where he grew up. He told the story of his family’s economic struggles and made the case that he is the candidate best suited to defeat President Donald Trump, whom he called “the most dangerous president in modern American history.”

“I want to welcome you to a campaign which says loudly and clearly that the underlying principles of our government will not be greed, hatred, and lies,” he said. “It will not be racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, and religious bigotry. It will not be tax breaks for billionaires and efforts to throw millions off the health care that they currently have. This campaign is going to end all of that.”  

Sanders first announced his 2020 bid in a February 19 interview with Vermont Public Radio. As my colleague Tim Murphy wrote then:

There was no listening tour, no exploratory committee, no “wait and see” teasing—just a bit of personal news and a very successful fundraising email.

But the aesthetics may be the only thing that haven’t changed. After a doomed but hard-fought challenge to Hillary Clinton in 2016, he never really stopped running. He put out books, stumped for candidates, and watched, not impassively, as his proposal for a single-payer health care system was adopted into the Democratic mainstream. Sanders is now a meme and a movement, and he enters the presidential race as something that seemed impossible four years ago—a front-runner for the nomination

Watch the campaign kickoff below:

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

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