The Soft-Soaping Of Socialism In The U.S. (auto-on audio)

Ideology: Bernie Sanders is coming on as a presidential contender, while polls show surprisingly large parts of the public look favorably on the socialism he espouses. The public apparently has forgotten socialism's record.

For years, Sanders, an avowed, unapologetic socialist, was viewed as an anomaly of U.S. political life, an eccentric whose atypical ideology reflected the supposed quirkiness of his home state of Vermont.

Now that's changed, and with Democrats worried about the scandals surrounding their top candidate, Hillary Clinton, Sanders is attracting ever-bigger audiences on the campaign trail. Polls show him at 15% of the Democratic tally.

JUST AN ORDINARY AVERAGE GUY? I don't think so

Maybe that's because Sanders is portrayed in the media as "a normal guy" — as a Washington Post headline put it — while liberal media doyen Bill Moyer headlined a [news item "Despite What Corporate Media Tells You, Bernie Sanders' Positions Are Mainstream."

In the Huffington Post, Distinguished Professor Peter Dreier of Occidental College, one of Barack Obama's alma maters, declared, "Bernie Sanders' Socialism Is as American as Apple Pie."

Such is the new narrative about Sanders, 73, whose ideology grew out of the same 1930s roots as all past socialist movements, even as America since the Reagan era has moved toward free markets and taken much of the world with it.

Read the rest of this IBD editorial HERE.

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