CNN report finds Bernie Sanders’ fans can’t define socialism as it spreads across America
At a recent Bernie Sanders rally, CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin asked some of his supporters about his appeal, asking them to define the word socialism, but, some of them didn’t exactly know…
Baldwin showed her video of the very enthusiastic Sanders supporters she spoke with on CNN earlier today. A few of them contrasted Sanders with Hillary Clinton.
“…she’s out of touch,” one Bernie supporter said of the former First Lady.
“Can you define socialism?”
“Socialism?” one Sanders supporter asked before growing silent.
“Can I define socialism? Probably not, if I’m being totally honest” another answered.
photo/ donkeyhotey
“Socialism, oh boy. I don’t think I can,” echoed one more.
Roads, social security, stuff from the government and a long-winded civil rights rant were among the other answers, check out the clip below for yourself.
Some evidence to support the growing support of socialism was found in a Des Moines Register poll this month, in which 43 percent of Democrats who planed to participate in Monday’s Iowa caucuses identified themselves as “socialist.”
That’s more than the 38 percent of respondents who called themselves “capitalist.”
Steve King, a Republican U.S. congressman from the 4th District of Iowa and a frequent critic of what he sees as socialist policies, told VOA he saw no reason to doubt the Register poll.
“I think that it’s probably true,” he said. “We shall see. If Bernie gets 43 percent [in Iowa], that would be logical. It’s a really sad thought, but I don’t doubt it.”
According to Richard Wolff, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, historical change is now.
“Something is going on in the United States that all of this is tapping into,” said Wolff, who also pointed to the recent Occupy Wall Street protests. “You’d have to be very strange not to see that. And I think Mr. Sanders is the next wave.
“The last 50 years, at least, the Cold War made words like socialism so bad, so negative, so off the wall, so associated with a horrible foreign country — every kind of negative association you could imagine.
“Now that period of history has come to an end. The Cold War is over. And the capitalism, which presented itself as the great victor in the capitalism versus socialism sweepstakes, is clearly having some serious troubles of its own.”
