Noam Chomsky: Is Bernie Sanders the presidential candidate most aligned with your views?
Within the two main parties, yes. Sanders seems to me an honest New Deal Democrat, whose positions would not have surprised Eisenhower particularly. The fact that he is considered a radical extremist is an indication of how far the political spectrum has shifted to the right during the neoliberal period, with the Democrats becoming what used to be called “moderate Republicans” and the Republicans drifting off the spectrum, hardly recognizable as a parliamentary party in the traditional sense – as has been recognized, incidentally, by the most respected conservative political analysts, notably Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute, who describe today’s Republican party as a “radical insurgency” that has pretty much abandoned traditional politics.
Sanders’s policy proposals are also fairly closely aligned with popular opinion over a long period. Take for example his much-maligned call for national health care. It is supported right now by about 60% of the population – a remarkable figure, considering its scant support in the mainstream and regular vilification. That’s nothing new. National health care has had quite high popular support for a long time. In the late Reagan years, polls showed that a large majority thought health care should be a constitutionally-guaranteed right, and about 40% thought it already was in the Constitution (because it is so obviously right). Obama’s proposal for health care reform at first included a public option, supported by a large majority, but was dropped with little discussion. When media and commentary refer to the idea at all, they call it “politically impossible” – meaning that the population doesn’t matter, only financial institutions and pharmaceutical corporations.
https://www.quora.com/Is-Bernie-Sanders-the-presidential-candidate-most-aligned-with-your-views
= new reply since forum marked as read
