Message auto-removed

[Name removed]

[Qutzupalotl]

1. Or at least a Social Democrat.

I think that’s more accurate than Democratic Socialist, considering his policies.

“Socialist” seems needlessly inflammatory, since people it brings to mind strongman dictators and anti-capitalism. But social democratic policies can coexist with capitalism, as they do in several Scandinavian countries.

[comradebillyboy]

2. Bernie has praised the socialism of Cuba, Venezuela and the USSR.

Bernie Sanders advocated for the nationalization of most major industries, including energy companies, factories, and banks, when he was a leading member of a self-described "radical political party" in the 1970s. I'm willing to believe him when he labels himself a socialist.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/14/politics/kfile-bernie-nationalization/index.html

[tishaLA]

4. He was like 40 when he praised the USSR

[comradebillyboy]

5. He was a grown man in his 30s, not a child.

By the time I was 30 I had completed my military service, finished graduate school and employed. At that stage of his life Bernie was just a drone.

[JI7]

7. he was in his 40s , older than mayor Pete is now.

[Hortensis]

8. Mid 40s, mayor of Burlington, when Sanders was in

Nicaragua approving Daniel Ortega's yelling to cheering crowds that the U.S. was ruled by terrorist criminals, etcetera, etcetera. Most of us had sympathy for Nicaraguan's rebels and hoped it would come out well for them.

But Sanders' zealous support for violent "socialist" revolutions lead him to believe what no sensible person could believe, defend what no normally moral person would defend, deny very well documented truths. For those reasons alone (but there were others) I would have believed early in 2015 that he was very much the wrong stuff for leadership of the world's greatest democracy.

With the passing decades, as the "socialist" revolutionaries in a number of nations he was so supportive of made the typical journeys of ruthless extremists to repressive and even murderous authoritarian governments to keep power, and then still further to authoritarian dictatorships that were effectively right-wing dictatorships in spite of any lingering rhetoric, Sanders has always retained his initial support for their failed or disappeared "socialism" and refused to condemn.

This 1985 video contains unsupportable pumps of the success and benefits of socialism in Cuba and completely blows off the vicious repression as if it didn't exist. Probably for him it simply didn't matter since he saw it as continuing the socialist evolution. https://grabien.com/story.php?id=222847

That continues to this day as he refuses to condemn Maduro's vicious attempts to keep power against the will of the people over a collapsed Venezuela that bears not the slightest resemblance to a successful socialist state. Nor does any other nation on this planet, either now or in history.

Imo, this inability to see or care about truths that conflict with his zeal for socialist revolution that has never lead to a successful state is an absolutely HORRIBLE sign for someone who seeks great power in our nation.

[David__77]

9. Wow: "Most of us had sympathy for Nicaraguan's rebels and hoped it would come out well for them."

Thankfully, lots of Democrats opposed providing aid to the contras.

[David__77]

6. Tony Blair said he was a socialist too.

There are lots of variations of socialist politics.

Karl Marx was a Social Democrat. Some people say he was something else.