Bernie is a good and decent man. I would have voted for him in a one-on-one race against Biden. I thought long and hard about voting for him in 2016 before choosing Hillary, who is by any measure far more progressive than Biden.
But one of the frustrations I have had with Bernie is his insistence on calling himself a Democratic Socialist. This label alone walls him off from a wide variety of voters. And it’s not necessary.
More to the point, I don’t think Bernie is a Democratic Socialist. I think he’s a Social Democrat. I don’t think he would ever really say he believes in the Socialist approach to managing the economy, whether Democratic or not.
I’m not a huge fan of Thomas Friedman, but his column today makes a lot of reasonable points: www.nytimes.com/…
He writes:
Third, Senator Sanders, do you believe the free enterprise system is the best means for growing jobs, the economy and opportunity — or do you believe in more socialist central planning? I ask because I have often heard you praise Scandinavian countries, like Denmark, as exemplars of democratic socialism. Have you ever been to Denmark? It’s democratic but not socialist.
Denmark is actually a hypercompetitive, wide-open, market economy devoted to free trade and expanding globalization, since trade — exports and imports — makes up roughly half of Denmark’s G.D.P.
Indeed, Denmark’s 5.8 million people have produced some of the most globally competitive multinationals in the world, by the names of A.P. Moller-Maersk, Danske Bank, Novo Nordisk, Carlsberg Group, Vestas, Coloplast, the Lego Group and Novozymes. These are the very giant multinationals Sanders constantly rails against.
As the former Danish prime minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen once remarked in a speech at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government to those who might not fully grasp the Danish model: “I would like to make one thing clear, Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy. The Nordic model is an expanded welfare state, which provides a high level of security for its citizens, but it is also a successful market economy with much freedom to pursue your dreams and live your life as you wish.”
I’ve been to Denmark about a half dozen times. My brother and his family live there. It’s a wonderful country with a very broad and active social safety net that supports mothers and families and health care and life-long learning and social development. It’s also a place where people work really hard and are driven to succeed and excel and compete.
I might quibble with Friedman on some finer points. But the broader conclusion here is right on — Bernie’s interpretation of Scandinavian socialism isn’t quite accurate. They are social democracies, not democratic socialistic utopias. And I think Bernie is much more of a Social Democrat than a Democratic Socialist. His insistence on the Democratic Socialist political label probably cost him votes and maybe the presidency.