Sanders’ “Socialism” Would Realize FDR’s “Economic Bill of Rights”
While some alternative media outlets are having some fun reporting on the corporate media’s Nevada win meltdown and repeated attacks on the Sanders campaign, I must have missed this one. Check it out.
First of all, consider the fact that this polling is coming from Democrats, not right wing Republicans.
I’d guess it was coming from the Buttigieg campaign, not Bloomberg.
Yes, Bloomberg did call Sanders a Communist on national TeeVee, but the Bloomer campaign seems too dim witted to pull this off.
In contrast, given the express red baiting, Cold War revival ideology, and harsh attack on socialism, the messaging fits very well within the Buttigieg camp’s ideological affinity and personal relationships with the National Security State (he’s former Navy Intelligence): (Source)
“The Post reported that a private poll “paid for by a rival presidential candidate,” likely Bloomberg, had tested the following negative message: “Bernie Sanders is a socialist who supports un-American, big government plans that will spend trillions of dollars, lead to higher taxes, and destroy our way of life.”
Like all good propaganda, there’s some truth in there.
Yes, Sanders would try to “destroy” the corporate Billionaire dominance of “our [anti-democratic] way of life” and the power of climate deniers and corporate polluters to block real action on the climate emergency.
Yes, Sanders does propose “big government plans that will spend trillions of dollars” – I am particularly impressed by his Green New Deal plan. Medicare for all, free college tuition and massive jobs and public housing programs are hugely popular as well.
Yes, Sanders’ Medicare For All plan would “lead to higher taxes” – mostly on the wealthy and corporations – while eliminating insurance premiums, co-pays, deductibles and out of pocket expenses for working families (averaging over $12,000/year) and saving over 68,000 lives and $450 billion/year, according to a Yale study published in the Lancet.
But no, none of this is “un-American” – in fact, it is the fulfillment of FDR’s original New Deal promise of an “economic bill of rights”:
[FDR’s] remedy was to declare an “economic bill of rights” to guarantee these specific rights:
- Employment (right to work[notes 1]), food, clothing and leisure with enough income to support them
- Farmers’ rights to a fair income
- Freedom from unfair competition and monopolies
- Housing
- Medical care
- Social security
- Education
All that, my friends, is as American as Apple Pie.
And thank goodness young people overwhelmingly understand that.