Go, Bernie, Go! Why a socialist running for president isn’t as ridiculous as you think

[steve2470]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/04/bernie_sanders_announces_his_presidential_campaign_the_vermont_socialist.html

Why is a 73-year-old socialist from Vermont running for president when he surely knows he can’t win? Sen. Bernie Sanders has decided to take the plunge into forbidding waters for the same reason earlier socialists campaigned for the office: to protest the current order and promote major reforms his rivals either oppose or support only when doing so juices their standings in the polls.

Sanders is going to compete in Democratic primaries so he can debate Hillary Clinton and attract media that would otherwise ignore a passionate, white-haired independent with an uncompromising left-wing agenda. Not that he has much choice: Since the 1950s, the United States hasn’t had a third party capable of disseminating its anti-capitalist politics to the public at large.

During the first half of the 20th century, however, radicals like Sanders could join the Socialist Party of America, which boasted more than 100,000 members at its height. The SPA ran thousands of candidates for offices both high and low. It even managed to elect a couple of congressmen as well as dozens of mayors in locales as diverse as Milwaukee; Berkeley, California; and the little railroad town of Antlers, Oklahoma. Many of the reforms the party advocated ended up becoming law.

Beginning in 1900, Eugene Victor Debs ran five times for president, never gaining more than 6 percent of the popular vote. The charismatic former union leader crisscrossed the nation, stretching out his long arms as if to touch the admiring crowds whom he urged to destroy “the foul and decaying system” and erect a “cooperative commonwealth” in its place. But Debs’ platform also included such “immediate” demands as women’s suffrage, a progressive income tax, an eight-hour day, a ban on child labor, and a vote for the residents of the District of Columbia that no longer seem radical at all.

[gordianot]

1. There are different kinds of socialist his type does not benefit the Republican ultra wealthy.

America has been a socialist country for a long with the financial safety net, in my book maintaining that qualifies you as a Conservative. Grandma and Grandpa should not have to eat dog and cat food even though they watch Fox News. You should not have to revert to a reverse mortgage to survive. The Republican Party is the party of radical oligarch socialists.

[99th_Monkey]

2. Hell, we've tried everything else. Why not Socialism?

The GOP party of Wall St. has had their turn, revealing themselves
to be the party of the super-rich only. The Third Way has had a go
at it and failed to deliver on it's promises of Jobs via trade deals
that only end up benefiting outsourcing corporations.

I think it's high time to try something we haven't tried .. something
so "radical" as .. gasp.. Socialism. This may be the perfect time to
wake the populous up to connecting with their own best collective
interests, i.e. a “cooperative commonwealth”.

[cali]

3. this article has some very good info

And makes some good points, but Bernie isn't a radical. Cruz, Huckabee, Paul, etc? Demonstrably radicals