CBS: Bernie Sanders talks about his brand of socialism
Bernie Sanders talks about his brand of socialism
Bernie Sanders defended his qualifications for the Democratic presidential nomination on Saturday, despite the fact that he's not a member of the Democratic party, and he outlined what being a so-called "Democratic socialist" means to him.
A fair amount of reporting on Mr. Sanders has been fear mongering on the "socialist" brand. This is a problem, but I also think there's a more subtle problem with reporting like this. Using the phrase "so-called" with "Democratic socialist" implies that it's some sort of term that Mr. Sanders has created.
Certainly it's fair to assume Bernie's version of Democratic Socialism may not be identical to someone else's, but there seems to be a willful ignorance on the part of the press that Democratic Socialism is a well known and well understood political philosophy.
It's one thing to assume one reporter or another is uniformed about the world and political history, but not the entire mainstream media. They have a responsibility to report what Democratic Socialism is, not turn it into a scare word or pretend they have no idea what it is.
