Unlike Some People, Bernie Hasn't "Evolved"

[ehrnst]

73. So you understand about the ACA being a neccessary "B" on the

way to Universal Health Care.

And you acknowledge that there will be some people who will lose out on the way to health care reform, because like segregation, it's a problem with many different moving parts, and things will be worse for some people before they get better.

One of the other losers in desegregation were the black kids in southern counties who decided to just shut down all public schools rather than desegregate by bussing. The districts opened "Christian" schools that were open only to white children.

There is an entire generation of black children in some areas of the south who missed years of public school education as a result of legislated desegregation and bussing.

https://www.virginiahistory.org/collections-and-resources/virginia-history-explorer/civil-rights-movement-virginia/closing-prince

When a Representative is pressured to vote as his constituents want them to, they often do.

Through his first two years in the Senate, he supported most—but not all—of the anti-busing legislation. In two crucial exceptions, he voted to table the Gurney Amendment in May 1974—and he also voted in favor of the Scott-Mansfield compromise. He sided with Brooke on both votes, and on both occasions their side prevailed by a single vote.

For these few votes, Biden attracted the fury of his white constituents. Delaware residents had formed the New Castle County Neighborhood Schools Association in order to resist desegregation. In June 1974, the group organized an event at the Krebs School in Newport, Delaware—as Brett Gadsden details in Between North and South. The event’s coordinator had recently declared, “We’re going to hound Biden for the next four years if he doesn’t vote our position.” Standing before a Krebs School auditorium packed with angry white parents, Biden explained that he supported busing only as a remedy for “de jure” segregation. He assured the crowd that any segregation in Delaware was “de facto,” and therefore—he claimed—beyond the authority of the courts. The crowd jeered him anyway until he departed. The ugly incident clearly left its mark on the senator.

For another example, see Bernie Sanders' explanation of his votes on gun regulations as per his constituency in Vermont.

"Bernie’s response is that he doesn’t just represent liberals and progressives. He was sent to Washington to present all of Vermont," Pollina said. "It’s not inappropriate for a congressman to support a majority position, particularly on something Vermonters have been very clear about."

"As a rural state with a large number of hunters and other gun owners, Vermont has been less liberal on guns than on most other issues, historically," explained Bertram Johnson, a professor of political science at Middlebury College in Vermont. "He seems to support more regulation of guns than the U.S. presently has, but he recognizes his constituents’ preferences so does not make gun control a priority."