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Bernie Sanders (obviously) lost the Democratic nomination to Hillary Clinton last year, but the Vermont senator left the race in a more powerful position. He was talked with helping to transform the party with a more progressive slant with an eye toward 2020, and along the way, he’s been challenging Trump appointees and generally serving as a firebrand for the liberal cause. Well, Sanders is also taking some time to condemn threats made against right-wing cheerleader Ann Coulter, which resulted in the cancellation of her upcoming speech at University of California at Berkeley.
Coulter responded to her axing by insisting that she’ll still give her speech and even challenged campus security to “arrest” her in the process. Bill Maher then defended Coulter‘s right to free speech, and Sanders also feels the Bern even while acknowledging that she’d deliver a sure-to-be-divisive speech. He spoke with the Huffington Post:
“I don’t like this. I don’t like it. Obviously Ann Coulter’s outrageous — to my mind, off the wall. But you know, people have a right to give their two cents — worth, give a speech, without fear of violence and intimidation.”
Sanders continued to express his belief about how shutting down her speech would work no progress, but instead, that liberals should challenge her with tough questions and basically allow her to talk herself into a corner:
“To me, it’s a sign of intellectual weakness. If you can’t ask Ann Coulter in a polite way questions which expose the weakness of her arguments, if all you can do is boo, or shut her down, or prevent her from coming, what does that tell the world? What are you afraid of — her ideas?”
Berkeley officials responded to the threats against Coulter in hopes of avoiding violent protests, which previously led them to cancel Breitbart troll Milo Yiannopoulos’ planned February appearance. Berkeley has also been the site of several brutal scuffles, the most recent of which saw anti-Trump and pro-Trump groups toss fists and draw blood.
(Via Huffington Post)