SANDERS: ‘It’s not enough for somebody to say "I'm a woman — vote for me"'

REUTERS/Bryan Woolston

Bernie Sanders believes the Democratic Party has some soul-searching to do in light of the 2016 election.

"The working class of this country is being decimated — that's why Donald Trump won," Sanders said at the Berklee Performance Center in Boston on Sunday night. The Vermont senator was there promoting his book, "Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In."  

When a woman asked Sanders how she could become the second Latina senator in US history — Catherine Cortez Masto, Nevada's former Attorney General, became the first on November 8 — Sanders replied with what seemed like a thinly veiled critique of Hillary Clinton's unsuccessful campaign.

"It is not good enough for somebody to say, 'I'm a woman, vote for me.' No, that’s not good enough," Sanders said. "What we need is a woman who has the guts to stand up to Wall Street, to the insurance companies, to the drug companies, to the fossil fuel industry."

The Democratic Party needs to abandon "identity politics," he noted, and address the underlying economic problems that plague everyday Americans.

"It’s a step forward in America if you have an African-American CEO of some major corporation," but a person's race or gender "doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot" if they cater to special interests and lobbyists and favor large corporations over citizens' interests, Sanders said.

After Hillary Clinton's stunning loss to Republican outsider Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, along with other high-ranking progressives like Elizabeth Warren, has called for reform within the Democratic National Committee. Shunning establishment figure Howard Dean, Sanders recently endorsed Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN), one of the party's most progressive members, to chair the DNC.

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