I've always thought Sanders brazenly adopted it because his opponents were going to label him that way anyway. A lot of progressives of the past have had to either spend a lot of time side-stepping labels of socialism, or have to confront it constantly. Conservatives called Obama a socialist for 8 years, remember? And here comes Sanders with a noticeably more progressive platform, a history of connection to leftist figures like Parenti, and he's on camera praising Cuba. He had already been calling himself a socialist as mayor of Vermont for decades too.
Also I don't believe Sanders was running in 2016 expecting to win or even do well. He had the advantage then of running against notoriously unpopular Hillary Clinton and complete unknowns Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee.
Before 2016 all I knew about him was that one weird Senator from that tiny New England state that shouldn't be a state anyway, listed as (I) whenever it was voting time. But he voted with the Dems anyway. On the rare occasion he came up, it was stated he was a socialist, and I chalked it up to a lily-white state's liberals just being what they are.
I first heard about Sanders from this 1986 Murray Bookchin essay. I think I read it around 2009? Bookchin is really harsh and calls Sanders a Reaganite of all things.
I've always thought Sanders brazenly adopted it because his opponents were going to label him that way anyway. A lot of progressives of the past have had to either spend a lot of time side-stepping labels of socialism, or have to confront it constantly. Conservatives called Obama a socialist for 8 years, remember? And here comes Sanders with a noticeably more progressive platform, a history of connection to leftist figures like Parenti, and he's on camera praising Cuba. He had already been calling himself a socialist as mayor of Vermont for decades too.
Also I don't believe Sanders was running in 2016 expecting to win or even do well. He had the advantage then of running against notoriously unpopular Hillary Clinton and complete unknowns Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee.
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Before 2016 all I knew about him was that one weird Senator from that tiny New England state that shouldn't be a state anyway, listed as (I) whenever it was voting time. But he voted with the Dems anyway. On the rare occasion he came up, it was stated he was a socialist, and I chalked it up to a lily-white state's liberals just being what they are.
I first heard about Sanders from this 1986 Murray Bookchin essay. I think I read it around 2009? Bookchin is really harsh and calls Sanders a Reaganite of all things.