Go knock on some doors; Bernie Sanders sounds off.

• Author: Nichols, John
• Position: Leader of the Progressive Caucus in the House of Representatives - Interview

Bernie Sanders thinks the American left should put down the cappuccino and start going door-to-door explaining that class is the issue and that socialism really can work in America.

"It is good to sit in the coffee shops among all the radicals and talk about all the things that we should do," says Sanders, the former mayor of Burlington, Vermont, who this fall will seek his fourth term as the only independent socialist in the U.S. House. "But then we want to leave the coffee shop, we want to go to the working-class community, and then we want to knock on those doors and talk to those folks, and get their support for a political movement. I'm much more interested in that aspect than the coffee-shop talk."

In the face of the most rightwing Republican Congress since the 1940s, a Democratic Party that has embraced Wall Street, and a rising tide of voter disenchantment that as often as not expresses itself in votes for billionaire "populists" and rightwing commentators turned "tribunes of the working class," Sanders says that progressives can no longer afford to sit on the sidelines of the political process.

It is time, he says, to get down to the business of engaging the broad American electorate in discussions of class and economic democracy.

"If you cannot communicate with ordinary people, then you're not going to have a serious effort. And that means getting involved in school-board elections and city-council elections and getting out there where people live," says Sanders, the most politically successful socialist in American politics since the 1920s.

Sanders cautions progressives not to be put off by some of the attitudes that they will encounter.

"You and I can sit around and make all these wonderful analyses, but if you cannot leave and then knock on doors and be able to talk to people who might have sexist ideas, or might have racist ideas, or might have homophobic ideas, it isn't going to work. You can't say, `This person is a homophobe, this person's a sexist. I just can't communicate with them. I refuse to talk to that person.' You have to talk to people where they are at, and you've got to deal with the issues that are on people's minds. And you've got to remember how little information ordinary people are getting from the television and the radio and the newspapers - you've got to have that in the back of your mind and understand that. You can change the way people express themselves, you can plant new ideas, but none of this will happen unless you enter into a real dialogue with them."

After an adult lifetime devoted to political activism - including enough unsuccessful campaigns in the early years to earn him derision as Vermont's Harold Stassen - Sanders is well aware of the challenges facing the left at what almost everyone sees as a critical juncture in American politics. But he argues that the very volatility of American politics creates an opening for progressives who are willing to mix pragmatism and principle with the hard work of running and winning elections. And, Sanders argues, winning elections really does matter.

Sanders chairs the Progressive Caucus, a coalition of thirty-four left-leaning U.S. House members. In the first weeks of the current Congress, when the Democratic leadership remained shell-shocked by the Republican takeover of the House and the Senate, Sanders and the Caucus launched a "Cancel the Contract" campaign that was the first serious challenge to House Speaker Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America."

"If you accept the Gingrich point of view and the corporate mentality, then you say: `It is too bad that the standard of living of everybody is going down; it is too bad that the gap between the rich and the poor is growing wider; it is too bad that all of our jobs are going to Mexico and China and that corporate America is downsizing. It's all just terribly bad, and we understand how much pain people are feeling. But, obviously, the government can't play any role in this because we know that if the government does anything it will only make the situation worse. So, clearly, we need the government to play less of a role - maybe provide some education and training, but nothing else,'" says Sanders, with the mix of mockery and deep seriousness that marks him as one of America's most entertaining and impassioned politicians.

"Well, I don't accept the Gingrich point of view. In the deepest sense, what they're really saying is akin to saying, `We're sorry that you've...