Mark Ruffalo endorses Bernie Sanders for president calling him 'one of us': 'He is the original progressive'
'Avengers' actor Mark Ruffalo has endorsed presidential candidate Bernie Sanders as his pick for the Democratic primaries, telling supporters in a video that the 78-year-old Vermont senator was the only one fighting for key issues that he cared about.
"The one person that just keeps coming up to me and popping out to me is Bernie Sanders," Ruffalo says in the three-minute-long video, before going on to explain how Sanders' advocacy had made discussions around "pie in the sky" issues such as healthcare and debt relief the norm.
"The key issues that most of the leaders in the field are either espousing or working around the edges are health care, not taking money from big corporations and PACs, fighting climate change, some sort of debt relief for college students [and] free education," he says.
"People considered those things to be pie in the sky in 2016, right? Now they are the norm because Bernie stood and walked into those issues that he knew were the right issues for the American working class. So I proudly and humbly throw my support to Bernie Sanders. He will make an excellent and historic president in the very moment we are ready for it and need it the most."
Ruffalo went on to add that Bernie is "the original progressive" and the American people need a "movement leader" and a "movement organizer" who is "actually one of us."
The actor then delved into his childhood and explained how his experiences of growing up in an industrial town resonate with his support for Sanders.
"I grew up in a factory town – what was probably one of the biggest industrial hubs in the United States at the turn of the century – which is Kenosha, Wisconsin," he revealed. "I grew up in those working-class neighborhoods where my neighbors worked at American Motors or Anchor Hocking or Anaconda Brass. I saw those companies closed down and I saw my community devastated. The thing about the working-class people that I grew up with was they had a real kind of moral center to them."
"I think that’s partially why Bernie resonates with me because he feels like those people," he continues. "I believe in him and he is the people that I grew up with. He is those working-class people and I know that he’s got their backs because that’s who he is. That's what he came from."
"Bernie's ethos is us, not me. He knows that his power is derived from us. He'll be the first to tell you that this is not about me. It's about you."