Everything else aside...the country will be a long time recovering from the damage Trump is doing...whether he wins or loses. You cannot tear the scab off underlying racism and then just slap a bandaid on. He has given license to not only hate anyone not white but anyone who disagrees with them. Things are going to get worse. Kind of glad I will not have to live it.

Oh FFS!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_socialism

Democratic socialism is probably closer to what Sanders beleived when he started in politics 40+ years ago. Now he's more of a social democrat, which is ironic in that they're viewed as being synonymous these days.

You are correct on that.

Social democrats aren't socialists. Then again, neither is Bernie Sanders.

I had a girlfriend in college who referred to herself as a socialist. She wasn't one, but she adopted the term as code for meaning that she was a forward-thinking and nice person who didn't like big corporations. I kept explaining to her that she wasn't actually a socialist, but she didn't quite get it (and she was of above-average intelligence, so this was just an isolated bit of cognitive dissonance on her part.)

Socialism is an economic model, not so much a political one. It can be democratic or totalitarian. I have no doubt that Sanders believes in democracy, but the socialist bit seems to be a relic of his past (and I suspect that he was somewhat similar to my ex-gf in that regard.)

“Let me define for you, simply and straightforwardly, what democratic socialism means to me,” Sanders said. “It builds on what Franklin Delano Roosevelt said when he fought for guaranteed economic rights for all Americans. And it builds on what Martin Luther King, Jr. said in 1968 when he stated that, ‘This country has socialism for the rich, and rugged individualism for the poor.’ It builds on the success of many other countries around the world that have done a far better job than we have in protecting the needs of their working families, the elderly, the children, the sick and the poor.”

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/bernie-sanders-democratic-socialism

As I said, he made it up. He's a New Deal Democrat, without being a Democrat. But he can't call himself a New Dealer and an independent at the same time, hence this effort to separate himself from the Democratic Party.

(Of course, this has become somewhat confusing now that he's what may prove to be a temporary Democrat.)

I agree, he has torn the scab off, and he's given a platform to a lot of disgusting views.

To me the bigger problem is that it exists (or has existed) in such a large scale in this country, regardless of Trump.

I check myself even as I say that, as one should not automatically be labelled a racist simply because they attend a Trump rally. It doesn't help to boil the issues down to 'racist' vs 'socialist' labels.

The country has been immersed in these race issues since the very beginning, and they have never truly gone away.

You may know that the US military even endeavored to export segregation to the UK during WWII, when it attempted to have local communities near US military installations impose a color bar at pubs, etc. Odd to be fighting fascism on the continent of Europe while bringing Jim Crow to parts of England.

Yes in some ways it may good for the country to have this discussion. It might not be pretty but the end result might be worth it. I recall a year or so ago when they repealed parts of the vra. The scotus suggesting racism was now a thing of the past.

With Trump offering to pay legal fees, I wonder if many bottom feeders think this is free license to beat people up. Some now suggesting the violence is a veiled threat that a contested convention would get nasty.

Two days ago my wife came home from breast reconstruction surgery, following her mastectomy in August, with chemo that ran until December. Even the Neulasta injections were billed at several thousand dollars each. So far the entire process has cost us nothing out of pocket, except, of course, her regular Medicare payments that are deducted from her SS and the $115.00 deducted monthly from her pension for her secondary coverage.

My cousin on Vancouver Island pays a monthly amount similar to our secondary coverage for her BC health insurance.

What most people here in the US don't understand is that the harmonized tax on sales of goods and services in BC largely pays for the "free" health care - in total a whopping 12%. (5% federal, 7% provincial). The liberals here - and that's the vast majority of the posters - would rightly howl about it being so regressive and falling so heavily on the Poor, who can't afford it, if anyone were to suggest similar taxes to pay for health coverage here. Of course, somehow it has to be paid for and however that is done it will consume a major chunk of the GDP.

Canada spends 11% of its GDP on healthcare.

The US spends 17%.

Of the two, which one is getting fleeced here?

When Sanders starts telling us which "commanding heights " of the economy he's going to nationalize, I'll start believing he's a socialist. Until then the reality is that he is nothing of the sort. Of course that's not going to stop the clueless claiming that he's a socialist and/or communist, as we've recently seen on this thread.

Actually it is 8% provincial and 5% federal for 13% total.

An excellent op-ed by Frank Bruni in the NYT today on Trump's need for attention:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/13/op...ness.html?_r=0


Here are the last few paragraphs:

We complain incessantly about politicians who neglect us, who don’t indulge our requests readily, who skimp on news conferences.

BUT their reasons are often sound. They understand that everything they say has weight and consequence: that at a certain altitude of leadership, words matter greatly and carry great risk. Trump’s failure to grasp this was evident in his comment in February about a protester who was being ejected from an event in Las Vegas. “I’d like to punch him in the face,” Trump fumed. A leader must speak with care — and in careful measure.
There’s only one measure for Trump: more. More products bearing his brand. More buildings blaring his name. He’s a modern-day Midas, with a vain twist. Everything he touches turns to Trump.

He insists on that. Craves it. No reassurance sustains him for too long; no validation suffices. That would be as true of Trump the president as it is of Trump the candidate, and it would dictate the terms and the tempo of a reign from which this country would not soon recover.

But Trump won't pay. He's a liar. He isn't even willing to pay for his own presidential campaign.

Bernie did this to himself though, he had to see it coming.