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Ah Bernie, what could have been...
(lemmy.ml)
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this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2024
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FDR was much closer to being a Social Democrat than a Democratic Socialist. They sound similar but are quite different. Hell I think Bernie is closer to a Social Democrat, too. He praises the Nordic model and they're textbook social democracies.
I've always felt that's just pragmatism from Bernie, and in truth he's ideologically a democratic socialist. If it makes any difference this is coming from a democratic socialist who's a member of a social Democrat party.
If you read his book "It's Okay to Be Angry About Capitalism" it becomes very very obvious that this is the case. From quoting very radical anti-capitalists to tongue and cheek (somewhat) insider jokes such as naming the chapter on his time in mayoral politics "Socialism in one City", it shows he's definitely way more ideologically aligned with socialism than people give him credit for.
As an European, I have never understood why so many American leftists don't see that, even by simply listening to what he is saying or looking at what he is doing. I mean he literally has a picture of Eugene Debs on his desk and mentions how he is this political role model and hero any chance he gets, that alone should tell you where he stands on an ideological or philosophical level..
And of course, he has been involved in various socialist groups his whole life and literally still calls himself a democratic socialist. Why would he do that if it wasn't true? To gain a political advantage, in America of all places, where calling yourself a socialist would have generally been political suicide?
And then are his policies, where many will focus on healthcare and say "he just wants healthcare" and ignore anything else. But of course, healthcare is a major issue because it makes the working class even more dependend on their employers because they lose tgeir healthcare if they get fired, so it makes sense for him to focus on tgat first. And of course, he also had other policy in his program, like transfering 20% of ownership over major corporations to their employees and having workers electing half of the board of directors.
You can call him a reformer, you can call his participation ineffective, but why deny his political believes?
Completely agree with everything you said.
The same has also started to be done with Bernie's "successor's" like AOC and Jamaal Bowman, I'm not sure how exactly they can stop that other than regularly virtue signaling how radical they are and potentially alienating any moderates.
The oddest part to me is the people who downplay Bernie's radicallness. I've only ever heard it done by left wingers who think he's not actually left wing enough, thereby distancing themselves from their best option, and by right wingers looking for an easy gotcha against lefties by going "He just wants Denmark that's not socialism". Literally the only people downplaying Bernie's radicalism are the ones who would seemingly have a vested interest to do the opposite.
Don't know too much about Jamaal Bowman, but AOC also seems like a genuine leftist activist that happened, mostly because of a glitch in the system and pure luck, to slide into somewhat of a political position.
And of course, there will always be severe limits to what that path can bring. Which is why they mostly focus on rhetoric and making their ideas more mainstream viable and popular. I think at the moment, that's probably the best they can do. They cannot solve our problems for us, and even if they could, that shouldn't be the goal. The goal should be that we get into a position where we can solve our own problems.
In my view, it's mostly done by "radical online Marxists" and edgy radicals, who I suspect aren't actually doing much except for complaining about it on twitter, which is probably why they get uncomfortable with people actually doing real world stuff? And not gonna lie, sometimes I get my tinfoil hat on and start to question if those are actual misinformation bots.
I also have seen it a lot on the right and with other anti-socialists, who just want to paint Bernie as a hypocrite. Same people who say "But Bernie is a millionaire, what a hypocrite"..