BUILDING A BRIDGE TO THE FIRST WORLD WAR: “Bernie Sanders’ campaign speech in this suburb of New Orleans felt more like a union organizing rally from 1915 than a modern American presidential campaign pitch in 2015:”

“At the top of my list is the issue of income and wealth inequality … it’s the great moral issue of our time, it’s the great economic issue of our time, and it is the great political issue of our time,” he said at the top of his speech, before spending most of his hour-plus time on stage repeatedly hammering away at progressive economic issues.

There were nods to social issues, though Sanders rarely spoke about them separate from economic concerns, instead repeatedly linking social concerns to fundamental economic issues.

“For kids who graduated high school, who are between the ages of 17 and 20 if those kids are white their real unemployment is 36 percent. If they are Hispanic, 37 percent. If they are African American … the real unemployment rate is 51 percent,” Sanders said to boos.

Similarly, on women’s issues, Sanders said, “Speaking to my brothers here today, you’ve got to stand with us on this issue … when women earn nothing more than the same level as men, we’re going to take a huge chunk out of poverty.”

Bernie makes the country sound like it’s still at perigee of FDR’s Great Depression. Will the media ever explore the cognitive dissonance separating their own feel-good economic reporting post-November of 2008 and Hillary’s running as Obama’s successor, versus Sander’s nostalgic sepia-toned fire-and-brimstone doomsday rhetoric?