Thread by @thoughtfulwonk

Here’s the transcript of @chrislhayes asking @SenSanders to define *socialism* on @allinwithchris #inners

Hayes: I wanna ask you about #socialism. There’s an email that just went out in the last few days from the Trump campaign, which, of course, is already up & running.

https://twitter.com/thoughtfulwonk/status/1098759936513839104

Hayes:...”It’s a fundraising email. It says, ‘@SenSanders announced he will be running for president with a very simple platform: FULL-BLOWN SOCIALISM—not partial socialism—full blown socialism. You’ve called yourself a socialist for years. It’s been a question, interestingly...

Hayes: ...on the campaign trail. Other candidates have said they’re not socialists—they’re capitalists— but there’s this debate that has ensued about, “what does that mean?” A lot of Conservatives have pointed to Venezuela and said, “food shortages, increasing authoritarianism...

Hayes:...is what socialism means, and it’s what @SenSanders wants, what is your definition of socialism and what’s your model for it.

Sanders: I think, that when we look a modern democratic civilized society you’re looking at exonomic rights in addition to political freedoms...

@SenSanders : ...So right now we have a constitution, you have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, etc etc. I happen to believe that in the year 2019, with all of the wealth around us , we can create an economy which GUARANTEES health care to all people as a human right...

@SenSanders: ...which guarantees education from child care to higher education as a human right, which guarantees the right of people to have decent and affordable housing, which makes sure that you’re living in a community where the water that you are drinking...

@SenSanders: ...and the air that you are breathing is clean. It’s economic rights as human rights—that’s what I mean. And by the way, Chris, that’s not a radical idea.

@chrislhayes: Right! That’s my question: What you’re describing is a mixed economy...

@allinwithchris #inners

Hayes:...You know, there’s a National Health Service in the U.K. There are the United States Public Housing.

@SenSanders : of course

@chrislhayes: We have public provisions of those goods. Is there something over and above that distinguishes your vision from a kind of...

Hayes: ...welfare state, mixed economy?

@SenSanders : Well, I should, also, add that in 1944 this is exactly what Franklin Delano Roosevelt talked about. He talked about jobs, and healthcare and education as a human right to be guaranteed by the government....

@allinwithchris

@SenSanders :...and what I’m talking about exists, in many countries all over the world. You know, you go to countries in Scandinavia, college education is free. Every other major country on earth guarantees health care to all people as a right....

@allinwithchris #inners

@SenSanders: Most countries have higher minimum wages than we do, so, essentially, what we are talking about is making sure that a vibrant democracy makes sure and guarantees that all of our people can have a decent standard of living...

@allinwithchris #inners

Sanders: ... and that we do not have this grotesque level of income and wealth inequality where three people end up owning more wealth than the bottom half of the country where a handful of billionaires can spend hundreds of millions of dollars to buy elections..

@allinwithchris

@SenSanders: ...that’s what the political revolution is about. That’s what democratic socialism means to me.

@chrislhayes: So let me return to the Venezuela case bc it has been so used by Conservatives in the U.S. on exactly this: You’ve been critical of the Maduro regime. I think, also, critical of the steps taken by the Trump administration sort of ratcheting up pressure...

#inners

@chrislhayes: But what is @SenSanders theory for the case for why Venezuela is the way it is. What went wrong there in what was an avowedly socialist project?

Sanders: Ah well, I mean, that’s a long story that I don’t think we have the time to get into..

@allinwithchris #inners

@SenSanders: But this is what I will say: and that is that I think there must be free and fair elections in Venezuela. The last elections were not free. Second of all, we have got to do everything that we can to provide humanitarian aid along with other countries—so the people...

@SenSanders: ...so that people do not starve to death, and thirdly, we need to make certain that the United States does not do what it has done time and time again in our history, and that is getting involved in overthrowing governments in Latin America.

@allinwithchris #inners

@SenSanders: ... We did that in Chile. We did that in Brazil, Guatemala, other countries, we should not be doing that now. The future of Venezuela must rest with the Venezuelan people not the Trump administration.