Quote:But Sanders isn't advocating for socialism.
Medicare for all is not socialism. A livable wage for all is not socialism. Even closing loopholes so people and corporations pay the level of taxaition they're already expected to isn't socialism.
Actually, I think you'll find those things are the very definition of socialism, Sad.
Conservative parties all over the world might support these policies, but there's nothing stopping conservatism from veering into socialism.
You can see this in the spectrum of views from the British monarchy's notion of
noblesse oblige to Nazism/fascism's National Socialism. National Socialism was the right's response to communism.
Democratic or Fabian socialism is only slightly left of centre. It too was a response to communism after the Paris Commune and popular uprisings of the 1840s. Leaders like Bismarck saw it as the only way to stop their populations staging revolutions. The British Labour Party took it on, as did Marx in his later years. Fabian or democratic socialism saw the rise of the hospital, along with other previously utilitarian causes, like prison reform. Democratic socialism established aged and blind pensions, free health care and the rise of unions.
The US did not establish these things until FDR in the 1930s. Prior to that, labour unions were illegal in the US. These social programs were a response to the Great Depression. Like Bismarck in the 1890s, the US feared the rise of communism. Democratic socialism was a move to the centre. When Bernie references socialism, he's referring to the principles and unfinished reforms of FDR.
And do you know? Despite the right's willingness to embrace modest components of socialism (especially since Trump), Bernie has not got a hope in hell. Just think, the reforms of Bismarck and FDR are considered a utopian fantasy in the US.
Sadly, a do-nothing professional politician like Sleepy Joe is the Democrats' only hope to beat Trump, but what kind of hope is that?
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