To those of us who have been following the significant shift of the Democrats to the left (both socially and economically), this is no surprise. Democratic Socialism is a path to Communism (ask the Communists!).
It will be interesting to see if this run to the left works.
From US News & World Report:
As Bernie Sanders deliberated his 2016 run for the presidency, he understood that his odds of toppling Hillary Clinton were low.
But winning was never the lone goal for the gruff independent from Vermont.
Despite more than two decades toiling in Congress, Sanders remained a backbench player, he confided to a top adviser at the time, according to “Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign.” He sought a higher profile in the U.S. Senate for the liberal causes he had built his career around. A well-run White House campaign, win or lose, would do the trick.Fast-forward more than two years and Sanders is seeing that notion bear fruit.
While his former primary opponent, Hillary Clinton, is relitigating the last war, an emboldened Sanders is already making moves to shape the next one. Clinton may technically be right, as she continues to assert in interviews, that Sanders “is not even a Democrat.” But it’s Democrats who are increasingly gravitating to Sanders, as 16 did this week by joining his legislation calling for a Medicare-for-all health care system.Clinton is indicating she wants to remain active in politics by backing Democratic candidates in 2018 who can help flip Congress. But in a striking role reversal, it’s the 76-year-old Sanders who now wields more power among the next line of budding aspirants in Democratic politics.
“This week looks like a moment where it’s crystallizing in a lot of people’s minds that Bernie Sanders is the future of the Democratic Party,” says Mark Longabaugh, a Democratic consultant and aide to Sanders’ presidential bid. “There’s an assumption within the Democratic Party that a progressive candidate is a weakness. That’s not a weakness, that’s a strength. We have to lose some of the timidity that the party has had for too long on policy issues. How did Donald Trump end up as president? The public is restless and extremely unsatisfied with the performance of government. You have to make an argument. Put big bold ideas on the table. The public may not agree with every aspect, but they’re going to give you credit for trying to do something. Bernie Sanders put it on the table and argued for it.”
Just look at some of the names who stood next to him Wednesday to roll-out his universal health care pitch: Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey.
All are prospective candidates for the presidency in 2020 – and 10 months following the party’s harrowing 2016 defeat, they found themselves moving towards Sanders ideologically and physically, as each waited for his call Wednesday to make remarks at a Capitol Hill podium.