The Political Genius of Bernie Sanders’ Socialism
Over the last 40 years, Republicans have changed the meaning of the term to "any public good not strictly reserved for rich and/or white people." Why don't we just go with that ans say that public goods are fore everyone?
http://inthesetimes.com/article/18154/bernie-sanders-socialism
Yet it’s clear that something sets Sanders apart from Menendez, Durbin and the other Democrats with similar voting records. Perhaps it’s that, by formally keeping his distance from liberalism, Sanders forces fundamental political and moral questions onto the table.
His socialism isn’t a “charade.” It’s a provocation, simultaneously jarring and oddly familiar. And it’s politically brilliant—which is perhaps why it irks conservatives like George Will.
Five decades ago, Sanders’s agenda was called New Deal liberalism. But three decades of policies that cut taxes for the wealthy while privatizing and shrinking the public realm have rendered the old labels and frameworks nearly irrelevant.
As the “Sanders surge” gains momentum, his identity as a socialist will be condemned, celebrated and contested. But it won’t be ignored. The word provokes the media to take note. And when they do, they might discover that Sanders’s preoccupation with equality has deep roots in our past. Our politics, at its finest, has long nurtured the faith that near-term investments in public works pay long-term dividends, that the point of government is to pursue the common good and that inequality is toxic to our democracy.
That faith doesn’t amount to radicalism or socialism in the classic sense, it’s true—Bernie is hardly calling for the dictatorship of the proletariat. But in our current context, his politics come off as downright radical. And it just might be a form of “socialism” that much of the country—more than 47 percent—is ready to embrace once again.
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