Paul Krugman rips into Bernie Sanders for becoming one of his own "bros"

Sanders goes "for easy slogans over hard thinking," Krugman argued, and his politics are "utterly unrealistic"

Published April 8, 2016 3:29PM (EDT)

Paul Krugman       (Reuters/Zainal Abd Halim)
Paul Krugman (Reuters/Zainal Abd Halim)

In his Friday New York Times column, economist Paul Krugman made it abundantly clear which Democratic candidate he is supporting, writing that "in the past few days [it] has become all too clear...Bernie is becoming a Bernie Bro."

He used the issue of financial reform to illustrate his point. "[G]oing on about big banks is pretty much all Mr. Sanders has done," Krugman argued, and "[o]n the rare occasions on which he was asked for more detail, he didn’t seem to have anything more to offer."

This "absence of substance" is, Krugman wrote, "true of his positions across the board":

You could argue that policy details are unimportant as long as a politician has the right values and character. As it happens, I don’t agree. For one thing, a politician’s policy specifics are often a very important clue to his or her true character — I warned about George W. Bush’s mendacity back when most journalists were still portraying him as a bluff, honest fellow, because I actually looked at his tax proposals...

Read the rest at the New York Times...


By Scott Eric Kaufman

MORE FROM Scott Eric Kaufman


Related Topics ------------------------------------------

Bernie Sanders Elections 2016 Hillary Clinton Paul Krugman