The Vermont Conversation with David Goodman is a VTDigger podcast that features in-depth interviews on local and national issues. Listen and subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get podcasts. Author and Democratic strategist Tad Devine. Photo by Ellen De vine In 2016, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., was an insurgent candidate taking on Hillary Clinton, the heavily favored pick of the Democratic establishment for the presidential primary. As Sanders barnstormed the country and brought out millions of people to hear his message, the Clinton machine’s operatives and super-PACs swung into action to stop him by any means necessary. Tad Devine was deep in the trenches of this fight. He is a veteran Democratic political consultant and was chief strategist for Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign. Prior to that he had been a senior adviser in the presidential campaigns of Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004. Devine has written an explosive new book about the 2016 Democratic primary campaign, “How the Democrats Screwed Bernie.” His inside account comes as a new generation of populist Democrats, including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, is once again challenging the Democratic establishment and receiving fierce pushback from the old guard. Devine writes that “the entrenched leadership of the Democratic Party seems determined to forget the mistakes it made during the primary season of 2016.” He blames the Democratic elite for “two catastrophic defeats in the recent past and who knows how many more to come in the future.” Devine insists, “The Democratic Party must stop impeding voters from determining the outcome of primaries.” “How the Democrats Screwed Bernie” by Tad Devine. Could Bernie have beaten Donald Trump in 2016? “Donald Trump’s own pollster showed up at Harvard for the post-election review, and when asked what would have happened if Sanders was the nominee, he said he would have won,” Devine told me. “He understood that those white working-class voters who fled Hillary Clinton would have gone back to Bernie Sanders.” Devine said the reason the Democratic Party is “completely out of touch with the American people” is because it participates in “a rigged system” in which the richest donors can buy elections. He said that in other countries, “if they threw money into campaigns anonymously, they would go to jail.” “We have to break from that stranglehold of money in politics and establish ourselves as a party that is willing to seek funding through people at the grassroots level.” There are two ways to fix the corrupt campaign financing system, Devine said. “One is elections, and the second is the Constitution and overriding the Supreme Court. That is the only way home right now for America.” Devine said that “overwhelming majorities of Democrats, Republicans, independents support changing the system of campaign finance.” What they need is “a visionary leader or leaders to come out and to move the nation in that direction.”  Is there any particular leader who he thinks has promise? Devine suggested Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro or California Gov. Gavin Newsom might emerge. But he noted that Barack Obama was an Illinois state senator until 2004 when he was elected a U.S. senator, and then won the presidency four years later.  “People can come up very quickly in this day of instant communication.” When that leader emerges, he predicted, “I think politics will change in America and will give it back its soul.” Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont Conversation: ‘How the Democrats Screwed Bernie.’ Former Sanders chief campaign strategist Tad Devine on the 2016 presidential race. ...read more read less