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this post was submitted on 07 May 2026
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politics
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Bernie isn't a leftist.
cool, but calling him a centrist, and everyone else nazi’s kinda flattens the data set to the point of uselessness
He isn't a centrist. Jesus Christ, are you allergic to accurate political analysis? Bernie is a Social Democrat, aka a liberal. He once was a leftist, he is no longer.
"leftist" means a heckton of different things depending on who you're asking. Some people strongly feel that "leftist" means something distinct from "someone who is left wing", whereas others don't make that distinction. Of that latter category, some people use "leftist" to mean someone who is leftwing in an absolute sense, whereas other people use it in a relative sense, such that they would consider Bernie, who is on the leftmost fringes of a not very left wing (but more left wing than the GOP) party, a leftist.
I agree that when we're talking about politics, it's important to try to be precise in what words we use (especially when discussing politicians whose views may have shifted over time, as you highlight). However, the reality is that there is no single, agreed upon definition for terms like "leftist", and no authority by which we can definitively say who is using it wrong or right.
Even if Bernie isn't a leftist, he was certainly perceived that way by much of his party, who don't care about making granular distinctions between "Socialist Democrat" and "leftist" when for the Democrats, both of those collapse down to "way more left wing than we want to go".
Though I would also note that the person you're replying to didn't explicitly state that Bernie was a leftist. This isn't just me being persnickety — I get that they did heavily imply Bernie was a leftist. The point I'm trying to make is that there are a lot of people who don't think Bernie is/was a leftist, but, as one of the more left wing people in his party, could have been a passageway towards getting more candidates who are genuinely leftist (and indeed, some of the Dems pushing against Bernie likely shared this view)
Bernie commands the weak force, though. And we all know that the weak force only has time for the Left.
Left of the median, definitely favours some social policies, gotta be good enough.