Bernie Sanders sparks a debate over socialism — and Trump is happy to engage washingtonpost.com/politics/berni… // Sanders is going to spend an awful amount of wasted time explaining the socialism part of his democratic socialism. Why? The idea of free public universities & colleges is not
2/ inherently socialistic. I was 10 when I moved to California in the early 1960s. The Democratic Party under Governor Pat Brown had built a tuition-free University of California system and State University system, plus junior or community colleges. Nobody called it "socialism."
3/ It was common sense. The California Democrats built aquaducts and freeways. It was common sense for a growing population and economy. And when you listen to most of the examples Sanders uses, they come from FDR or LBJ. Medicare is LBJ's accomplishment and it was not socialism,
4/ though Goldwater, the medical industry, and the GOP and John Birch Society called it socialism. Today's Tea Partiers think Medicare is private health insurance, which is why you saw signs, "Keep the government's hands off my Medicare." Presidential campaigns are short once the
5/ conventions are over. Trump right now has $100 million cash on hand to define Sanders as a "radical socialist," when Sanders is, at best, a neo-New Dealer. And then there will be leaked KGB files, real and fake, of Sanders' time in the USSR. It all amounts to one gigantic roll
6/ of the dice with Sanders. Even the Tennessee Valley Authority model, which Sanders touts, is from the New Deal. And then there is the models he touts: the Nordic countries. I lived 5 years in Finland. The economy is thoroughly capitalistic. For a good period, Nokia, was the
7/ mainstay of the economy. The joke in Finland was that when Nokia caught a cold, Finland caught pneumonia. Sanders has never been raked over the coals in a political campaign. His Democratic rivals should do that now so that, if he wins the nomination, his campaign is prepared
8/ for the onslaught that will come. Sanders made Clinton a much better candidate. He forced her campaign to actual run a campaign rather than prepare for a gimme coronation. Sanders needs to be punched hard. In the Army we were told, "You only fight as hard as you train." And
9/ Sanders has not been training very hard.
