Democrats used to get annoyed when critics accused President Obama of being a socialist.
Not so with Vermont senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. He wears his socialist leanings on his sleeve like, well, an armband. And Democrats seem to be embracing him because of, rather than in spite of, his socialist policies.
Washington Times reporter S.A. Miller quotes James Berge, Democratic Party chairman for Iowa’s Worth County, saying, “Everybody is just smiling from ear to ear about Bernie Sanders [running]. The only way they could smile more would be if it was Elizabeth Warren who got in there.”
That quote is very telling for two reasons. First, it demonstrates where the excitement is in the Democratic Party, at least in Iowa—on the far left. Second, it confirms what we’ve known for a while: that Democrats have increasingly abandoned the center-left for the extreme left.
And if Democrats can’t have Warren as their candidate—and at this point is looks like they can’t—then why not Bernie? There’s almost no daylight between them on policy issues.
But what does it say about the Democratic Party that no one thinks Hillary Clinton will pull Sanders to the right? The only question is how far he will force her to the left.
It says that Democrats are embracing socialism.
A Reason-Rupe poll released last August found “Half of Democrats, 50 percent, have a favorable opinion of socialism.” That’s up from 45 percent in 2012.
For years liberal Democrats have struggled with how to identify themselves—or not identify themselves. Progressives? Liberals? Third Wayers? But they’ve always tended to shun socialist as a moniker.
However, there’s more and more evidence showing the term “socialism” is gaining favor. And look for the intellectuals to try and patriot-ize the philosophy by claiming that socialism is as American as apple pie, as Occidental College Professor Peter Dreier just did in the Huffington Post:
But Sanders’s views are in sync with a longstanding American socialist tradition. Throughout our history, some of the nation’s most influential activists and thinkers, such as Jane Addams, John Dewey, Helen Keller, W.E.B. DuBois, Albert Einstein, A. Philip Randolph, Walter Reuther, Martin Luther King, and Gloria Steinem, embraced socialism.
Conservatives and libertarians don’t mind being identified as such. Indeed, it seems Republican candidates fall all over themselves trying to make the case that they are the conservative candidate in a race—whether that’s actually true or not. So why shouldn’t Democrats be forthright about their economic and political leanings?
The one Democrat who will fight this trend toward socialism is Hillary. She will try to claim that she is in the mainstream, even as she increasingly sounds like the old Occupy Wall Street crowd in order to secure her party’s nomination.
Bernie Sanders and the growing number of Democratic socialists shouldn’t let her get away with that deception. Better to have an honest socialist than a dishonest one. We’ve had the latter for six years and look where it’s gotten us.