Mike Gravel, a former Alaskan Senator, dropped out of the 2020 presidential race Tuesday after failing to join the debates and push his campaign’s leftist agenda. Since then he has endorsed Bernie Sanders, a self-defined socialist.
Gravel’s was solicited to join the presidential race by a couple of extreme socialist-minded teenagers who wanted to find someone who could push the political debate as far left as possible. David Oks and Henry Williams found Gravel to possess the qualities they were looking for in his outspoken anti-war past.
“Gravel was willing to torch everything,” Williams said.
Oks nodded, “He’s like, a weird combination of cunning and just totally reckless.”
Gravel officially announced his candidacy for president late in the race with the main goal of getting into the Democratic debates and pushing the candidates on a variety of issues, including foreign policy. Oks said in the New York Times interview: “We thought, if we could get someone into the 2020 race, to the left of Bernie Sanders, we could push the entire field left, if we just got him or her into the debates.”
Gravel’s Twitter account posted, “It. Is. On. Sen. Mike Gravel has officially filed to run for president. Our only aim is pushing the field left by appearing in the Democratic debates. Donate as little as you like, but help us get to the necessary 65k donors! Official launch is April 8.”
Gravel’s campaign did meet the 65,000 donors requirement necessary to qualify for the debates, but lost in a tiebreaker. After announcing the end to his campaign, Gravel said he would donate remaining campaign funds to charities including to Flint, Michigan.
Gravel’s campaign did not meet the main goal of participating in the presidential debates, but is now getting behind Sanders to push a leftist agenda. The socialist Sanders has repeatedly touted his Medicare for All plan, which would nationalize the health care industry and cost U.S. taxpayers an estimated $32 trillion during the first 10 years.
Sanders has said that taxes would go up for the middle class, but healthcare costs would go down.
When Sanders first introduced his healthcare bill six years ago in Congress, the bill did not attract any co-sponsors, but after the recent hard shift to the left by Democrats, one-third of Senate Democrats and two-thirds of House Democrats now support the bill.
The Democratic Party is fracturing, with some trying to retain the more centrist position of liberalism and others pushing the party toward the hard left of socialism and communism.
