It’s the Age of Sanders, Too | The Vermont senator has pushed the Democratic Party toward radicalism, antisemitism and redistribution.

Graham Platner’s victory in Maine’s Democratic Senate primary was a personal triumph for the 41-year-old Marine veteran and campaign novice. His win also forces us to look at the last decade of U.S. history from a different perspective.

Americans think of the years since 2015 as the Trump Era. Politics, entertainment, foreign policy, education and even sports have been defined in relation to President Trump and the MAGA movement. Tell me where you stand on Mr. Trump, and I’ll have a pretty good idea of your views on a variety of questions, from trans rights and tax cuts to national pride and Iranian nukes.

Mr. Platner’s success is a reminder that Mr. Trump and MAGA aren’t the only actors in this drama. Running parallel to the Trump Era has been the Sanders Era: The rise of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders from socialist gadfly to Democratic Party kingmaker.

Mr. Sanders launched his 2016 presidential campaign one month before Mr. Trump. And though he lost the Democratic nomination that year, and again in 2020, Mr. Sanders did one job well: He pushed the party sharply to the left. He opened its doors to the Democratic Socialists of America. He inspired a new generation of leftist public officials, including Mr. Platner.

Indeed, in one respect, Mr. Sanders’s achievement is more historic than Mr. Trump’s. Not that his electoral record is better. Not that his proposals have become law. What makes Mr. Sanders significant is his novelty. He alone is responsible for bringing socialism into the political mainstream.

By contrast, Mr. Trump swims in the deep currents of American life. Populism predates 1776. Nationalism is rooted in our history. America is the exemplary capitalist nation. Mr. Trump has been a fixture in popular culture for 40 years. He embodies aspects of U.S. identity: glamour,...

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March 2026 : (Washington DC : U.S. Senate : Bernie Sanders introduces the Sanders–Ocasio-Cortez AI Data Center Moratorium Act in an effort to hobble US AI tech —— see Xue Lan, Zeng Yi, China influence campaign [see Shanghai billionaire Neville Singham [also see Singham’s wife Jodie Evans of Code Pink]) Sanders introduced legislation to impose a federal moratorium on new US AI data centers. —— Foreign Influence in the Campaign against American AI, Bitcoin Policy Institute , May 18, 2026 | Sam Lyma

April 29, 2026 : (Washington DC : Bernie Sanders convenes anti-US AI panel —- see Xue Lan, Zeng Yi, Neville Singham) On April 29, 2026, Sen. Bernie Sanders convened a 75-minute panel in the US Capitol on “the existential threat of AI.” Two of the four panelists were Chinese government affiliates: Zeng Yi, Dean of the Beijing Institute of AI Safety and Governance, and Xue Lan, a Tsinghua University professor who chairs China’s national AI governance expert committee and serves as a Counsellor of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China.
From a US Senate platform, Xue called the US-China AI race “an inaccurate narrative” and argued for “safe zones” of cooperation on AI safety. The event was held one month after Sanders introduced legislation to impose a federal moratorium on new US AI data centers.
The fact that this panel happened at all is itself telling. Two officials tied to the Chinese government, one an active Counsellor of the State Council, were invited onto a US Senate platform to advise the United States on slowing its own AI buildout. The panel was the culmination of an influence campaign across three documented streams of foreign input: attributed PRC and Russian state-media activity directly targeting US data centers; a CCP-aligned US nonprofit ecosystem producing parallel domestic content; and a foreign-billionaire dollar trail running into the very coalition that produced the Sanders–Ocasio-Cortez AI Data Center Moratorium Act.
—— Foreign Influence in the Campaign against American AI, Bitcoin Policy Institute , May 18, 2026 | Sam Lyma

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