A former top adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) compared voting for former Vice President Joe Biden this November to eating a “bowl of shit.”
Nina Turner, a onetime Ohio state senator who co-chaired Sanders’ failed 2020 campaign, made the comparison while discussing with The Atlantic the choice facing progressives this election cycle.
“It’s like saying to somebody, ‘You have a bowl of shit in front of you, and all you’ve got to do is eat half of it instead of the whole thing.’ It’s still shit,” she told the magazine.
Turner’s comments come only weeks after she lambasted the Biden campaign’s vice-presidential search process for ignoring credible progressive candidates. At the time, Turner said the presumptive Democrat nominee was signaling that progressives “need not apply” to be his running mate.
The former Sanders campaign chair’s sentiment is shared by many on the left, who worry that Biden, a self-described moderate, will fail to deliver on progressive priorities.
Most notably, this has been seen on the issue of healthcare. Biden, who has refused to endorse to Medicare for All, is facing stiff resistance from Sanders supporters on the topic. More than 360 Sanders delegates have signed a pledge to vote against the party platform at the Democratic National Convention next month if it does not include a provision expressing support for the universal healthcare proposal.