At a VT coffee shop last week, I ran into two reporters, which I do a lot. So, inevitably, the chatter turned to US Senator Bernie Sanders. Knowing that Sanders, as chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, was about to turn out a multi-TRILLION dollar budget proposal to remake the country’s economy, I thought this might be a story.

I especially thought it might be a story since NY Times columnist Maureen Dowd had just published one of her signature pieces focused on Sanders, complete with a meal at the famous Henry’s Diner in Burlington.

When are you guys gonna write about Bernie? I asked.

It’s not a story, they replied. Nothing’s going on.

*** Conflict of Interest disclosure below.

Two reporters are telling me there is no story to write about Bernie. And I am thinking the following:

Here is a guy who spent his early years in Vermont on a commune, moved to Burlington, and started selling film strips and cassettes of his socialist views to schools and other organizations. He ran multiple times for governor and US Senator and was trounced.

His approach is and was always the same. Working people are getting screwed by the wealthy in a system built by the wealthy to enrich themselves. Solve this by raising the minimum wage, provide health care for all, and free college education and, finally, make the wealthy pay more taxes.

The cool people at the adult table of politics ignored him. Then in 1981, Bernie wins by a mere 10 votes to become the mayor of Burlington, and he won over the Democrat. He wins a seat in Congress in 1990 and the US Senate in 2006. That was fine with the establishment because Bernie was no threat to the established order. They gave him a seat on the Veterans Affairs and Budget committees. He gave big speeches but didn’t do much damage. After all - he was from Vermont.

Then he ran for president, and voters sick of the establishment helped him come within inches of winning the whole thing. He should have won.

I remember watching him announce for president on the Burlington waterfront with Ben & Jerry and thinking - “This could happen.’’

Bernie would have beaten Trump. Why? Because the qualities voters thought they liked about Trump are what people really like about Bernie. He is unafraid and tells his truth all day long. Bernie is and has always been the real deal.

And then last January, the Democrats take over the Senate, and guess who is the new chairman of the Senate Budget Committee? Bernie Sanders. The guy from the commune and the film strips and the pamphlets about Eugene Debbs.

It turns out the country has come around to Bernie’s values, beliefs, and direction for our country. It turns out we want universal health care and easy access to a college education. It turns out we want a minimum wage of more than $7.25 an hour. And we would like our Medicare a bit earlier than 65. And we want to get off fossil fuels to save ourselves from climate change. And we think billionaires going to space while people sleep on the street is nuts.

Then last week, while the two reporters were hanging out wondering whether Bernie is a story, Sanders and the Democrats announced a $3.5 TRILLION proposal to fund Bernie’s priorities, which was a compromise for Bernie. He who wanted to spend $6 trillion!

What’s the story here for journalists? First, the commune guy is now the most popular and recognized politician in the world. Second, he is a key player in the Biden administration’s effort to remake the American economy to benefit working people.

The transformation includes switching to a clean energy economy away from coal and oil, tax incentives to help families out of poverty, two years of free community college, health care subsidies under ObamaCare, and a raft of other initiatives.

Maureen Dowd’s column - “The Ascension of Bernie Sanders” - got it right. After 45 years of banging the same message, Sanders sits at the head of a growing army of voters who want what he wants. It turns out he was right all along, and the rest of us were compromising.

And now he is “in the room,’’ not banging on the door from the outside. He is making the deals with Joe Manchin, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and the Biden people. After years on the outside, Bernie is now “pulling the levers in the control room,’’ Dowd wrote.

When I asked Dowd in an email about her interview with Bernie, she mentioned his famous message discipline. She believes that the combination of personality and politics is what makes the system work … or not. He just wouldn’t go there when she quizzed him about his wife’s Irish ancestry or pop culture issues like Britney Spears.

Sanders famously dislikes the personal.

“But he does things the Bernie way, and he has soared quite high with that style,’’ Dowd told me. “He stayed more than an hour -- which I took as a victory!’’

That’s the story!

*** I have a family member who works for Bernie.