The latest opinion polls suggest that Hillary Clinton’s lead over Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is slipping. A New York Times/CBS poll described Clinton’s lead as “melting away.” Reputedly 48 percent of Democratic primary voters across the country support Clinton, with 41 percent preferring Sanders.
Sanders is doing well in his neighboring state of New Hampshire and in Iowa. And the debate between them has taken on a new, edgier tone.
So for the moment, at least, we have to regard Sanders as a viable candidate as the Democratic Party’s nominee and not just as a protest vote.
Now domestic politics is an area into which I rarely stray in this column. I am certainly no expert on the subject. Furthermore, I like Sanders. I admire him. I respect him. Frankly, at the risk of sounding partisan, I even agree with him on some issues, although decidedly not on gun control. I hadn’t even seen a gun until I left Britain for the first time at the age of 16.
But there are a couple of things about Bernie that disturb me. They are things that I feel I should share with you: he describes himself as a “democratic socialist” and steadfastly refers to Denmark as a model for the United States.
So I think it is fair to ask two questions: is Sanders a socialist? And is Denmark a place to which the United States should aspire?
Is Sanders a Socialist?
The answer to the first question is quite simple. Sanders is not a socialist, at least by any reasonable definition of the term.
Yes, he does talk about themes common to socialists, like inequality and redistribution. But you don’t have to be a socialist to talk about those issues.
Indeed, many liberals in America do so. Noted economist Paul Krugman, for example, has been doing so on the pages of The New York Times for years.
And socialists don’t generally spend their time talking about the plight of the middle class the way Bernie does. They generally talk about the plight of the working class.
