How socialist is Bernie Sanders, anyway? Now that he looks to be the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, everyone’s starting to ask.
It clearly means something that he’s refused to register as a Democrat (except during prez runs) for his entire adult life. That’s roughly half a century as a capital-S Socialist — because he thinks the government should control a lot more of the economy.
He doesn’t talk today as he did in the 1970s and ’80s of nationalizing most major industries. But his distrust of the market runs deep: This is, after all, the guy who thinks it’s deeply wrong that you can buy so many different kinds of deodorant.
But Medicare-for-All, which means outlawing all private insurance, isn’t the only “let Uncle Sam run it” policy he’s pushing.
Notably, his “climate change” plan aims to make the feds the nation’s main supplier of electricity: Sanders would spend $16 trillion to, among other things, have the government build its own wind and solar plants to replace the fossil-fuel plants that now generate nearly all America’s electricity.
Bernie says that’s the only way to make US power generation carbon-free by 2030. On the other hand, he also calls his energy plan a “10-year, nationwide mobilization centered on equity and humanity.” Which rather gives away the truth that, as with the Green New Deal, the point is use the fight against climate change as an excuse for what he really thinks is needed: government control of, well, everything.