Bernie Sanders gave a big speech at Georgetown University today and used the opportunity to make clear a few things:
Well, that wasn’t the big theme of the speech but Sanders no doubt liked the line and the distinction it draws between his campaign and that of his chief opponent who is, also, the frontrunner. The speech was sold as a big-theme affair in which the candidate would make clear what he means when he calls himself a “Democratic Socialist.” (Hint: he does not favor nationalizing the means of production.) What the speech turned out to be was pretty much an effort to restart his campaign and get people excited, again, about Sanders’ positions and prospects.
So he ran through the usual litany of economic woes facing the United States making it sound as though the two terms of Barrack Obama have been almost as bad for the common man and woman as the one term of Herbert Hoover. Sanders points out, routinely, that for the middle class, incomes have fallen and that the real unemployment rate is 10 percent. People don’t have enough set aside for retirement. The health care insurance that they have is made unaffordable by high premiums and co-pays. Higher education is either entirely out-of-reach or a sentence to a lifetime of debt. And so on. Democratic socialism, he insisted, was good old Democratic party tax-and-spend, with a pedigree going back to Franklin Roosevelt. What he proposes, then, is nothing more than the New Deal’s logical next step.
Under President Sanders “democratic socialism” would amount to redistribution. College and health care would become free. Old age benefits and the minimum wage would go up. This would be paid for by increasing taxes on the people at the top. For Sanders, the mechanics for this are self-evident, so he didn’t spend much time on them. You tax here; you spend there. Simple.
So simple that Sanders wrapped up his tutorial on democratic socialism and used the opportunity at Georgetown to say something about what he would do to defeat ISIS and “radical extremism.”
That simple.
Sanders took a few questions from the students (they are always his best audience) and he knocked them straight out of the park.
Not a speech for the ages and not one to make the phrase “democratic socialism” into something that will ignite passion among the masses.
Just a good speech for his base. And a very clear signal that Bernie Sanders isn’t going anywhere.
