If elected, Bernie Sanders wouldn’t be America’s first socialist president

[cal04]

From the Revolutionary War, to the New Deal, to Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon, American socialism is nothing new


(snip)
First, socialism and capitalism are not mutually exclusive concepts. Senator Sanders will tell you as much. When he advocates for Nordic-style social democracy, he isn’t talking about capital-S “Socialism” of the kind that inspired so much McCarthyist paranoia in mid-century America. He’s talking about European economies that essentially operate on the free market (under reasonable government oversight), serving a populace than enjoys robust social-welfare programming.

(snip)
Even Republican presidents have enacted socialist projects. President Dwight D. Eisenhower (in office 1953-61) continued the post-World War II GI bill into peacetime, which is often attributed for creating the much-talked-about mid-century American middle class, the men and women who drove the economy into hyperdrive. He also created the Interstate highway system, a perpetuation of the New Deal, and enforced Brown v. Board of Education, a landmark case in the fight for equal access to public education for African Americans.

(snip)
John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Harry Truman—they all demonstrated socialist politics in some form or another (and were often accused of big, red Communism as a result).

In short, socialism vs. capitalism is, and alway has been, a false dichotomy. It’s a specter raised by anti-regulation, libertarian types to drum up public antipathy for government oversight. It’s language that cleverly stokes the embers of Red Scare. But, as history indicates, social welfare and free-market economics have operated side-by-side in America for centuries. And that isn’t likely to change.

chart at link
http://qz.com/534368/if-elected-bernie-sanders-wouldnt-be-americas-first-socialist-president/

[cascadiance]

1. The problem is when some try to equivalence *democratic* socialism with *1%er* communism...

... to try and scare voters against voting in "socialist" candidates.

Analogous to this is trying to scare people that all forms of capitalism is equivalent to 1%er fascism too.

Capitalism that is properly regulated, that doesn't allow fascist forces to buy out and control it to work strictly to 1%er interest, is also a decent thing too. But the way fascist forces now are trying to control it has capitalism working against us too.

We need to go back to Occupy's 1% versus 99% meme, which is more descriptive of the struggle we have, so that we can have a decent government that answers to the 99% that works with both socialist and capitalist designs where they work properly in society and are properly regulated to work for all of us rather than the 1%.

1%er Koch family (arguably the fascist leaning forces of then and now) teaming up with 1%er Joseph Stalin communists to build their fortune epitomizes the opposite efforts in both so-called "socialist" and "capitalist" governments that work only for the top 1% are what we should be rewarding, and show that 1%er forces team up, regardless of so-called government labels to control the people they control the government of, to enslave those peoples.

The sooner we recognize the 1%er forces everywhere, and not let them use labels to confuse and divide us, the sooner we'll overcome their power over us!

[Triana]

2. FDR - elected THREE times....

...and Bernie Sanders sounds just like him. The difference? FDR didn't call himself a "socialist" - but his ideology was exactly the same.

[hedda_foil]

3. That's FOUR times, though he died early in his fourth term.