BUFFALO, N.Y. — Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders would not stop yelling at sound guy Ethan Gardner about “Medicare for All” during a campaign rally earlier this afternoon, several eyewitnesses confirm.
“I will not accept this. Americans will not accept this. Health care is a human right,” Sanders belted at Gardner minutes into Sanders’ campaign speech. “How do you sleep at night? The American people work hard; they deserve this. The United States is the only major country on the planet that allows chief executives and stockholders in the healthcare industry to get incredibly rich, while disregarding millions of people who suffer because they can’t get the health care they need.”
Gardner, the sound guy at Buffalo Iron Works for the past 10 years, didn’t know how to respond to the senator.
“I mean, dude… don’t get me wrong, I absolutely agree with the guy. My full-time job is doing sound for a rotation of dive-bars, rec-centers, and the occasional Fireman’s Carnival talent show stage — I haven’t had health insurance in years,” said Gardner. “But… there just literally isn’t anything I could do to improve the situation for the whole of America from behind the booth.”
“I adjusted the levels, which got him back on track for a little bit,” he added. “But whenever he made eye contact with me, he just lunged back into the Medicare thing. I spent the rest of the night just staring at the EQ, trying not to set him off again.”
Witnesses report about a half an hour into the beratement, the audience began to side with the senator in his tirade against Gardner.
“I couldn’t believe the gall of that fucking sound guy,” said Tonawanda resident Anna Forester. “He was so defensive! It’s like he lacked common-sense — but more disturbingly, he had no empathy. Bernie brought up so many good points, and the sound guy just kept shrugging and side-stepping the debate.”
“At one point he even turned Bernie’s mic down,” agreed Sanders supporter Myka Ritale. “He said something about ‘the screaming blowing out the monitors’ or something ridiculous like that. That sound guy is a total fascist.”
Sanders was later overheard yelling at a cashier downtown about “student loan forgiveness,” seemingly sparked by the order of an underglazed beef-on-weck.