Bernie has his Truth Finger going

[contextly_sidebar id="o19qhuafsNIhXGs9NZNC9eLYFjV0oI5h"]Bernie Sanders is not going to let Barack Obama get away with being the only guy condemning the wave of anti-refugee hysteria. He would like you all to know that he too has had it up to here with the paranoia and fear. Which you'd kind of expect from a guy whose father escaped to America from Poland (and who lost much of his family in the Holocaust); if anything, the surprise is that he hasn't been saying it more loudly.

In a speech at Cleveland State University Monday, Sanders gave the Republicans the dope-slap they've been needing for all of their demagoguery on whether Syrian refugees are going to cut our throats in our sleep, or merely least poison us with their sharia law and enslave our women:

As Americans, we will not be terrorized. We will not live in fear. And I do have to tell you: I am disturbed by some of what I am hearing from my Republican colleagues, and I will just say this: During these difficult times, as Americans we will not succumb to racism. We will not allow ourselves to be divided and succumb to Islamophobia. And when hundreds of thousands of people have lost everything, have nothing left but the shirts on their backs, we will not turn our backs on the refugees from Syria and Afghanistan. We will do what we do best, and that is be Americans, fighting racism, fighting xenophobia, and fighting fear.

Sanders went on to suggest that maybe, just maybe, we don't have to be idiots when it comes to responding to terrorism:

We will learn the lessons of history. Yesterday, the chairman of the Republican National Committee stated, "never before have we seen an American president" -- meaning President Obama -- "project such weakness on the global stage" [boos from crowd] ... Well as many of you will remember, back in 2002, we had a president, President Bush. [More boos from crowd] You remember President Bush? And he was very, very tough. But not very smart.

[contextly_sidebar id="xUtjVIfdZjHZGrDZOBcFDL8fy2aAx9XU"]Yep, that's how we remember, it all right. Gotta be tough! Although George Bush managed to be a bellicose moron who tried to at least tamp down the people in his own party who wanted to frame the Afghanistan and Iraq wars as a fight against Islam. Today's Republicans have apparently decided that pretending they have an ounce of sense on the matter might make them look soft. Just wait til Obama gets home and Ted Cruz rassles him right on the White House lawn.

Thursday, it was Donald Trump's turn to get called on his racist bullshit by Sanders, in a brief digression from his big speech at Georgetown on what it means to be Democratic Socialist:

Let me just say a real word of concern to what I've been hearing from some of the Republican candidates for president. People can have honest disagreements about immigration or about anything else. That's called democracy. But people should not be using the political process to inject racism into the debate. And if Donald Trump and others who refer to Latinos, to people from Mexico as criminals and rapists, if they want to open that door, our job is to shut that door and shut it tight! This country has gone too far, too many people have suffered, and too many people have died, for us to continue hearing racist words from major political leaders.

That seems mighty hash of Bernie, really. Doesn't he know how many Mexicans Trump also loves and employs? Bernie's never going to win the Reagan Democrats with that kind of soft talk. Possibly because there's no such thing.

We encourage Bernie to keep getting tough on the haters -- lord knows they're going to keep up this fear-mongering crap as long as it keeps getting them applause, and progressives are going to have to hunker down and keep calling racist bullshit exactly what it is. At least until the refugees we let into the country sneak into our rooms and quietly slit our throats at night. But just in case that doesn't happen, here's the full video, for your Saturday enjoyment, of Bernie explaining what it is, this Democratic Socialist thing:

[HuffPo / Buzzfeed]