Nor is he a Democratic Socialist, nor a Communist. Bernie Sanders, very specifically, is a Social Democrat.
Anyone knows, very well, who has seen Monty Python's film, Life of Brian, and the scene when Brian asks to join the People's Front of Judea, the importance of words when naming someone's politics.
Still, according to this bit of concern trolling at The Hill, we're told, among seven, count them, seven reasons Bernie doesn't stand a chance --
First, the man is a socialist. He doesn't run away from that label; he embraces it. He has never been elected as a Democrat. The last prominent, well-known socialist to run for president was Norman Thomas. The one before him was Eugene Debs. Both ran many, many times and neither won any state or received electoral votes.
To most American voters, being a socialist sounds and feels foreign, or worse, scary. The word conjures up some cerebral left-bank ideologue. To others, it is interchangeable with the word "communist." Having the moniker "socialist" is in no way a plus. Even a more favorable label, populist, is deemed nice, but unelectable.
I would give a sixth grader a D- for a social studies report this bad. Beyond, perhaps, an appreciation of the value of strong labor unions, there is hardly any common ground at all between the historical Socialist and Democratic Socialist Presidential Candidates, Debs and Thomas, and Social Democrat, Bernie Sanders.
The Hill's other six examples, of Bernie's supposed electability baggage, reflect no more insight than the first example's moronic word play with Social Democrat:
2. Bernie has no base because Vermont.
3. Bernie is too old at 73.
4. "Jew." rinse, repeat.
5. "too Brooklyn" (you know, Jew).
6. No "significant legislation".
7. "Scruffy" looking.
So, to summarize The Hill:
1. Red.
2. Hick.
3. Old Timer.
4. Jew
5. Jew/Yankee
6. Who?
7. Ick.
Definitely sixth grade work, but just barely.
But, just a bit more about that Red, thing. That's just not Bernie, never has been and no sign it ever will be. Bernie's self-acknowledged moniker of "Social Democrat" doesn't contradict this at all. Bloomberg News asked political scientist, John Ahlquist, to explain:
Democrats, he said, are a centrist coalition that includes some groups that are left of center. Traditional socialism, other hand, is a political-economic system that organizes the economy purely around the needs of the people.
“The basic idea is that production decisions and everything else are not organized around the desire to make a profit, they’re organized by a cooperative group to produce stuff that people think they need,” Ahlquist said. “There’s no public figure in the Democratic Party who is advocating for social ownership of the means of production, Bernie Sanders included.”
When people talk about Sanders and his ideology, they’re discussing social democracy, the idea that “the elected government has a responsibility to ensure that the functioning of a market economy adequately provides for basic needs for everybody,” Ahlquist said.
Don't let anybody try to smear Bernie as a Socialist or a Democratic Socialist. Bernie believes in capitalism properly regulated for the general welfare in a democratic America. He is a Social Democrat and right now, Social Democracy is what America needs to cure many of her ills.
Throughout his campaign, Bernie Sanders and his supporters will be falsely painted by detractors as socialists, communists and worse, just as President Obama and Secretary Clinton have and will be accused. Our job is to call out anyone who does it within our earshot. Today, we're calling BS on The Hill. Bernie Sanders is not a Socialist.