In Tuesday night’s Democratic presidential debate on CNN, Sen. Bernie Sanders said he was going to explain to Americans what democratic socialism is.
Moderator Anderson Cooper asked: “Senator Sanders, a Gallup poll says half the country would not put a socialist in the White House. You call yourself a democratic socialist. How can any kind of socialist win a general election in the United States?
Sanders replied: “Well, we're going to win because first we're going to explain what democratic socialism is. And what democratic socialism is about is saying that it is immoral and wrong that the top one-tenth of 1 percent in this country own almost 90 percent--own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent. That it is wrong, today--in a rigged economy--that 57 percent of all new income is going to the top 1 percent.
“That when you look around the world, you see every other major country providing health care to all people as a right, except the United States. You see every other major country saying to moms that when you have a baby, we are not going to separate you from your newborn baby, because we are going to have medical and family paid leave, like every other country on Earth.
“Those are some of the principles that I believe in, and I think we should look to countries like Denmark, like Sweden and Norway, and learn from what they have accomplished for their working people.”Shortly later, Cooper asked Sanders: “You don't consider yourself a capitalist, though?”
Sanders replied: “Do I consider myself part of the casino capitalist process by which so few have so much and so many have so little by which Wall Street's greed and recklessness wrecked this economy? No, I don't. I believe in a society where all people do well. Not just a handful of billionaires.”
