Bernie Sanders Is Taking Back One Of The GOP’s Favorite Insults

[DonViejo]

Two weeks ago Senator Claire McCaskill, a Hillary Clinton enemy-turned-supporter, told Morning Joe’s audience what they already knew, that Bernie Sanders is “frankly, a socialist.” Whereas Obama denied the socialist accusation, Sanders affirms it, and the “s” word has done little to stifle the senator’s popularity. A week after responding to McCaskill, Sanders held a 10,000-person rally in Wisconsin. The following day, his aides announced his campaign has raised $15 million, and the following weekend he dressed down to stroll through a wholesome Fourth of July parade in Iowa, where the latest polls show the Clinton-Sanders gap has been cut nearly in half.

Sanders’ jolt into the media limelight is hardly enough for Clinton to fret; her aides have reported $45 million raised for her campaign so far, and she still maintains a formidable lead in the polls,.But does Sanders’ surprising success as an unapologetic socialist mean that calling a politician the “s” word no longer stings?

Sanders ties his definition of “democratic socialism” to a Scandinavian welfare state model, not the classical definition of socialism as public ownership of the means of production. The word “socialism” itself can describe a thousand different things, from a gulag to grandpa’s public health insurance. Newt Gingrich and other leading Republicans made calling Obama a socialist a seven-year-running stump speech. Given Obama’s centrist preferences on corporate tax rate and trade, and that his signature Affordable Care Act guarantees lucrative markets for private companies in healthcare, the claim that Obama’s a closet Menshevik makes as little sense as saying Reagan was for smaller government.

Of course, Gingrich and others were riffing off a century-old, anti-reform hobgoblin. The anti-Red hysteria and oppression ignited after shipyard workers (many of whom were pro-Bolshevik) shut down Seattle during the General Strike in 1919, has mostly exhausted itself. Nowadays, the “s” word raises money at Republican fundraisers, but doesn’t seem to spook the rest of America, especially those born near or shortly after the Berlin Wall fell. A 2011 Pew Research Center poll found that 18-29 year-olds were more likely to prefer “socialism” to “capitalism.”

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/bernie-sanders-redeem-word-socialist

[libdem4life]

1. Interesting thought about those Millenials...one of whom is my son...most have not yet

amassed a fortune to "conserve", and they've been on receiving end of austerity already...whether student loans, or low-paid, is they can find one, job. Starving wages for miminum work, etc.

[SheilaT]

3. It's those very Millenials

who were mostly voting for the first time in 2008 who gave such a huge boost to Obama.

Now, 8 years later, they're mostly done with college, working, maybe starting families. They are still young, still care a lot, still are on average quite liberal. A lot of them, like a lot of us old folks, have been disappointed by Obama in various ways. I doubt very many of them are going to succumb to the Neo Liberal nonsense of various establishment Democrats. In another ten years they will be stepping into positions of power, and some of them are already looking ahead to what they'll do.

[libdem4life]

4. And lots of them still paying on student loans. But I quite agree.

[SheilaT]

5. And that's why so many of them

that understand that any candidate closely aligned with Wall Street, big banks, and the 1% is not their best candidate.

[libdem4life]

7. ... to dare hope their interest rate can at least be brought down, loans forgiven, but at least

their children may get the opportunity to be educated free.

Most all of the other developed nations and some of the "undeveloped" nations pay for education...and health...and food...and livable minimum wage. Such Socialist Concepts.

[SheilaT]

12. Everyone with student debt,

and every parent or grandparent of a child with student debt ought to vote for Bernie.

We could move over perhaps a decade, maybe less time, to making public college free or very inexpensive. We start by making community colleges free. Pay for books, maybe lab fees, and those are manageable. Do make them free for those under some income level.

Reduce public college and university tuition on some sort of schedule. Have a maximum number of credits (say 150% of what it normally takes to graduate) that can be free, then some sort of payment must be made. Students do need some sort of incentive to graduate.

Graduate school is a somewhat different proposition, but that can likewise be phased in to be much less expensive.

[libdem4life]

13. California in the 70s, I got a 4 year education...Free. Between free Community

College and the NDEA (National Defense Education Act), my Jr. and Sr. year loans were forgiven 25% each year I taught in a Title 1 School. I did not pay a dime.

Tuition has gone up because of the greedy bankers...the more they will loan, the higher the tuition.

I recently looked into online Graduate School and was amazed that the amount available to borrow was strikingly close to the average tuition at most schools. There are fewer online than brick and mortar.

[SheilaT]

14. Graduate students in the hard sciences

generally pay little out of pocket. They are paid to do research and to teach and often get stipends. Everything else costs, and usually costs a lot.

Not too long ago I spoke with a woman whose daughter had been in college for about three years at that point, changed majors a couple of times, still didn't know what she wanted to do, and was remaining in school, continuing to borrow money because she saw it as better than getting out, getting a job, and now needing to start paying on the loans. There is so much wrong with that scenario, starting with borrowing large sums in the first place, or not at least starting at a community college.

My own two sons had the good fortune to have grandparents who underwrote college for them in the form of a 529 plan. I have said very often that had it not been for them, they'd have started at the local community college and finished up at the least expensive state university available. Unless they'd gotten full-ride scholarships somewhere. We were very lucky, and I appreciate it, but that doesn't mean others don't deserve genuinely affordable, possibly free, higher education.

[Kalidurga]

2. Bernie will take any insult or attack and turn it into a strength.

He is really good at it. I haven't ever seen anything like it myself. I also like how when someone asks about Hillary he says, "Do I look like Hillary? Ask her that question."

[navarth]

6. I think we'll all need to be answering the socialism meme

I'm assigning myself homework: be ready to answer when some low-information voter (dumbass) says "You mean that SOCIALIST???" What's my answer going to be?

[Bubzer]

8. Here's some pretty good information that might be helpful

The Nordic model (or Nordic capitalism[1] or Nordic social democracy)[2][3] refers to the economic and social models of the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Iceland, Greenland, Faroe Islands and Sweden), which involves the combination of a free market economy with a welfare state

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model

[navarth]

11. Help with my homework? Thanks!

I'll add it to the list.

[Bubzer]

16. Glad to help!

[DonViejo]

9. Unfortunately, I've already seen that crap flying in comments...

(NOT on DU), under articles about Senator Sanders. I've seen him referred to as "the old 60's Red" and in a rhetorical question, "How's Sanders' socialism working for Greece and Venezuela?"

[navarth]

10. That's what we need.

I want to know the most horrible stuff they can come up with and hopefully we'll all be ready for it when opportunity comes.

[AZ Progressive]

15. The days of the "communist threat" are long gone

This fear of "socialism" is way outdated.