After the South Carolina primary on Saturday, I sat down with Sophomore and Bernie Sanders supporter Robbie Dobies to discuss the 2020 election and the Democratic nomination. We spoke about Sanders’ policies, the road to the white house, and Biden’s latest victory in South Carolina and the possible impact. Please comment below or reach out privately to get your voice heard on The Fanscotian 2020 political coverage!
Matthew Levine: What do you think about the South Carolina primary last night with Joe Biden winning and Bernie Sanders coming in a distant second. Are you still confident about Sanders’ chances to win the nomination?
Robbie Dobies: Yeah, I am. I think everyone was expecting Joe Biden to win by at least a comfortable margin and I’m confident with the amount of delegates Bernie got. I was really only hoping he was going to get second. Going into Super Tuesday, he has a comfortable lead and I think Texas and California are really important places to win delegates. We’ll see what happens in about 30 hours.
ML: Are you worried at all that Biden closed the delegate gap last night, as he’s only 12 delegates behind Sanders. Do you think Biden is back in the race? Is this the turning point for him?
RD: I think it definitely helps him and like they [the media] said this was a make-or-break for him, but I’m still confident. Looking at the states Sanders is leading in versus the ones that Biden is leading, I’m confident in the amount of delegates Sanders is projected to win. I don’t think either of them are going to have the number of delegates needed to win going into the Democratic National Convention. So we’ll see how that plays out, but I’m confident that he can outperform his Super Tuesday projections. The only thing is that Biden can get momentum from this win, but since Sanders still has the most delegates – regardless of how many Biden got yesterday, Sanders is still the projected front-runner and nobody was expecting him to win South Carolina to begin with so, I don’t really think the win does much for Biden’s momentum.
ML: You have been a big supporter of Sanders for a long time, what’s the one policy/belief that sticks out from all the others?
RD: We have so many socialistic policies already in place in our government and what are a few more? It is really immoral to not guarantee Health Care as a human right. I think it’s disgusting that these companies can make billions of dollars in profit while denying insulin to diabetics and just letting them die because they can’t afford to pay for it. I think that an increase in tax on not just the 1%, but we will need about a 4% increase in taxes on the middle class making about $29,000 a year, however, the bulk of that increase in taxes are going to be on the 1% – the people that can afford to pay their fair share. Because of that, people are going to get the care they need when they need to get it.
ML: So if Bernie does win the nomination and goes up against Trump in the fall, do you think Bernie could win the general election?
RD: I do. First of all, he’s beating [Trump] in every national poll and second of all, I think that although people say that they’re afraid of his democratic socialism, his radical leftism, as people say, I don’t understand how guaranteeing Healthcare is considered a radical policy. I think that there’s such an overwhelming hatred for Trump among the entire Democratic Party and they’re going to do whatever they can to defeat Trump. I think that a lot of Republicans also have the same belief as Democrats and a lot of people are willing to try something new in order to get President Trump out of office.
