Written by Robert S. Becker   

Bernie’s Agenda: ’Democratic-Capitalism,' Not Ominous 'Socialism'

Bernie Sanders, by any classic measure, is a lousy socialist who should jettison this inflammatory, injurious misnomer. Does embracing "socialism" -- an open-ended, domestic land mine -- not distract from his admirable career, his national standing or three-month campaign explosion? If winning the nomination is the goal, then why allow every scornful interviewer, partisan Republican, or Hillary defender to wave that derogatory flag?

Does Sanders talk up nationalizing major industries? Top-down, centralized economic control? Widespread price controls, suspicion of private property, or divinely-ordained Five Year Plans? That's what vast numbers, and not a few political scientists, consider "socialism." For this pragmatist, it's high time Sanders removes a self-induced obstacle between him and his looming epic upset.

Even running for Burlington mayor, he wasn't about municipal-owned "socialized" utilities, though he achieved "community trust housing" and fought both city cable price hikes and destructive lakefront development. Where's the splashy socialism? Oddly, Sanders would gain more traction invoking his first allegiance, the high-sounding Liberty Union Party.

Let's face it: anything that reeks of "socialism" communes on our exceptional shores with communism, inviting knee-jerk tar and feathering by jerks -- without apparent upsides for his movement. How many socialists -- Scandinavian or otherwise--will decide our dozen key battleground states? What overt "socialist" candidate has wowed Democratic voters since noble figures, Eugene Debs and Norman Thomas, were news many decades ago? Nationally, in '12, less than 5000 voted "socialist."

Cult Voting 'Socialists'

Frankly, rightwing extremism sells better in polling: look how well the Trumpster does by singing proto-fascistic stanzas. Would his Trumpery not wither were his immigration wall folly depicted as a kind of socialistic-monopoly boondoggle, forever marrying private industries and topdown federalism to serve Tea Party fantasies? Is not the entire Trump immigration value package a bizarre way to empower the state to "socialize" America by keeping it white as long as possible? Makes the federalized "socialism" of public schooling or Medicare look tame. I make a point here solely about nomenclature as this is certainly not Sanders' view of humane European socialism.

I appreciate the senator's loyalty to a decidedly "outsider" term that fuels his battle against the corporate billionaire class, one that crudely equates socialism with infamy. I get the logic of redeeming a tarnished phrase to do public education, nobly turning a glaring negative into a positive for a breakthrough candidate. I endorse a candidate who defines himself before foes slice and dice "who he really is." Yet, why lean on a long-standing, political curse word, setting up Sanders for every illiterate, know-nothing slam? Further, "socialism" provides scornful Hillary partisans open season to deny their party nominee would ever wear such a suspect badge.

On point, is there true socialism behind Sanders' insistence that bloated billionaires pay their fair share and not dictate government elections? Eisenhower did that by refusing to lower the top tax of 90%, then warn about the hegemony of military-industrial complex. Or multitudes afterwards who favor limiting campaign donations. Does his socialism prompt Sanders to condemn the goal of making money, not so far, or instead criticize how rigged courts and Congress produce gaping loopholes that make huge asset concentrations inevitable. There is nothing socialistic about dressing down the rich addicted to money -- and the power and influence it buys. Jefferson and early progressives did that.

Has Sanders ever condemned the sanctity of private property or pushed for Washington to commandeer major industries or suppliers? Demanding universal health care, with strictly regulating prices, closes down no corporate health providers---- only humanizes them as profit-driven public utilities? How many corporate giants go bankrupt serving Medicare?

Do Ideologues Win in America?

What Sanders underestimates is how greatly Yanks hate ideology, especially imported systems from the repellent, tainted Old World. Only the horror of communism outpoints socialism in this hall of shame -- and for Republicans a "slam-dunk" cudgel against Democrats, already like Obama laughably presumed "socialist" when "ensnaring" slavish minorities. Winning candidates shy away from suspect abstractions that cost support without offsets, and that goes for nearly all successful candidates: sure, describe your positive attributes and triumphs, but don't systematize it as rigid ideology if that loses you the election.

Truth is, Sanders is anything but an ideologue, socialist or otherwise -- and less of a "democratic socialist" than a "democratic capitalist." Like FDR, Sanders' agenda represents an attempt to redeem, even rationalize tarnished capitalism, not end it -- not even promise drastic systemic changes (well, not so far). Does Sanders impugn GNP except when producing too much pollution from fossil fuels, thus his progressive environmental solutions? Does Sanders not boast of the slice of the capitalistic military-industrial complex he brought to Vermont?

Even his challenge to dreadful WS bailouts, that reinforced "too big to fail" banks, keeps Sanders in the capitalistic camp, reinforced by his system-serving reforms for jobs, infrastructure, and improved commercial arrangements. Certainly, let's reinstate Glass-Steagall, but if that's socialism, I'll eat my progressive hat.

Progressives cheer on pragmatic, doable reforms, designed to level the uneven playing field and rebalance egregious inequality of pay and assets for the bottom 80%. Raising the minimum wage and restoring the once-lauded middle class is hardly socialism, but manifestly the New New Deal. I can't find any Sanders proposals that fervently smack of classic socialism, and even pushing for free college education doesn't threaten capitalism, even profit-driven schools. Yes, as with better fossil fuel regulation, "big" government's role expands, but it's all about who pays, not whether some centralized bureaucracy controls higher education.

Sanders Invokes FDR, not Debs

Not only is Sanders not much of a socialist but, like FDR, embraces an agenda that buoys the capital-depleted middle-class, revitalizes lost consumer spending, and ends up saving today's worst-case version of crony capitalism from itself. In fact, if we wanted to support bad, modern socialism, then Dubya's corrupt TARP bank bailouts fits the bill. Ditto, Obama's loans that saved General Motors. Sadly, America's socialist legacy looms.

Years ago in Vermont Sanders may well have gained by calling himself a "democratic-socialist," and it hasn't impeded his Senate career from an unusual state. But sound bites and catch phrases dominate the national political stage, especially of late. I ask whether "socialism," with its undeniably dreadful American legacy, is not a hard-to-defend, self-induced, high-risk ploy, the only vulnerability for a campaign that could ignite a generational, even revolutionary movement.

I dread what the vast, overheated, overheated, irrational rightwing conspiracy will do with a curse second in smear value to communism. Since Birtherism lasted far, far more than the fifteen minutes of the infamy it deserved . . . and if the right can turn the nothing-burger of Benghazi into months of harangue . . . if anti-immigration bigotry tops early polling, just imagine and tremble. Sanders could take a leaf from Karl Rove: if not "democratic-capitalist," how about "compassionate, strictly American socialism"? Or for comic relief, "compassionate capitalism," but that has a major downside: Sanders' millions would never get off the ground, laughing uproariously while falling down in stitches, for months.