Michael Moore endorses Sanders

Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore is endorsing Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

In a letter posted on his website just before the Iowa caucuses, Moore dismissed those who claim there’s no way a “democratic socialist” can be elected president.

“Do you ever wonder why the pundits, the political class, are always so sure that Americans ‘just aren’t ready’ for something — and then they’re always just so wrong? They say these things because they want to protect the status quo,” Moore wrote. “They don’t want the boat rocked. They try to scare the average person into voting against their better judgment.”

{mosads}Moore defined Sanders’s democratic socialism as “having a true democracy where everyone has a seat at the table, where everyone has a voice, not just the rich.”

“If Hillary’s biggest selling point as to why you should vote for her is, ‘Bernie’s a socialist!’ or ‘A socialist can’t win!’, then she’s lost,” he wrote.

Moore went on to criticize The New York Times for its recent endorsement of Hillary Clinton.

“Well, the Times likes its candidates to be realistic and pragmatic. And to them, that means Hillary Clinton. She doesn’t want to break up the banks, doesn’t want to bring back Glass-Steagall, doesn’t want to raise the minimum wage to $15/hr., doesn’t want Denmark’s free health care system. Just not realistic, I guess,” he wrote.

He posted a chart comparing the two candidates and noting that Sanders has been a longtime supporter of gay rights, opposed the Patriot Act and was for tough regulation of Wall Street.

He then slammed Clinton for her positions on many issues, saying she was for the war in Iraq, against gay marriage and for the Patriot Act.

“Hillary says Bernie’s plans just aren’t ‘realistic’ or ‘pragmatic.’ This week she said ‘single payer health care will NEVER, EVER, happen.’ Never? Ever? Wow. Why not just give up?” he wrote.

Clinton would move the country “backwards, not forward,” he wrote.

“This would be sad. Very sad.”

“I honestly thought I’d never see the day come where I would write to you and get to say these words: ‘Please vote for Senator Bernie Sanders to be our next President of the United States of America,'” he wrote. “I wouldn’t ask this of you if I didn’t think we really, truly needed him. And we do. More than we probably know.”