General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: What is a Democratic Socialist? [View all]DFW
(54,047 posts)"The Party of Democratic Socialism (German: Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus, PDS) was a democratic socialist political party in Germany active between 1989 and 2007. It was the legal successor to the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), which ruled the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) as a one-party state until 1990. From 1990 through to 2005, the PDS had been seen as the left-wing "party of the East". While it achieved minimal support in western Germany, it regularly won 15% to 25% of the vote in the eastern new states of Germany, entering coalition governments (with the Social Democratic Party of Germany, SPD) in the federal states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin."
Wikipedia is correct here. It was the legal successor to the party that shot down people trying to cross the Berlin Wall, destroyed the lives of dissenters (sometimes by firing squad in the courtyards of Potsdam Villas where Putin used to hang out and oversee the proceedings as a KGB officer--I've seen the bullet holes), and made it illegal for than more than four people to congregate at one table at a café.
I know Bernie Sanders is nothing like this, but Americans aren't the only people to use the term. In Europe, he would be considered more of a Social Democrat, not a Stalinist Kommissar.