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Sanders: 'Obviously I am not a communist,' but maybe Trump 'doesn't know the difference'
The Hill ^ | February 9, 2020 | Zack Budryk

Posted on 02/09/2020 7:50:37 AM PST by karpov

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a 2020 White House hopeful, on Sunday dismissed concerns that his status as a self-proclaimed democratic socialist would be a liability in a general election and said President Trump’s description of his ideology as “communist” was inaccurate.

“Obviously I am not a communist,” Sanders told host Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday” in response to a clip of Trump using the designation in a Fox News interview, adding that Trump “maybe doesn’t know the difference.”

Sanders also called Trump a “pathological liar” for claiming Sanders was “married in Moscow.”

Wallace continued to press Sanders on how he would address criticisms that agenda items such as the Green New Deal, Medicare for All and forgiveness of college debt are both overly radical and prohibitively expensive.

“In many respects, we are a socialist society today,” Sanders responded, noting the tax breaks and subsidies Trump received from the government as a businessman.

“The difference between my socialism and Trump’s socialism is I believe the government should help working families, not billionaires,” he added.

Addressing his specific proposals, Sanders said both the price tags and the overhaul of the status quo were preferable to the alternative.

“If we leave the [health care] status quo alone, in the next 10 years we’re going to be spending $50 trillion,” he said. “Medicare for All will cost the average American less than the $12,000 a year they are paying the insurance companies.”

(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...


TOPICS: Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2020demprimary; bernie; bernie2020; berniesanders; communismkills; communist; lyingliar; nakedcommunism; redbaiting; sanders; trumpcapitalism
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To: Cincinnatus.45-70

Mitt Romney is a Mormon and a capitalist... how does that work?


121 posted on 02/09/2020 9:41:33 AM PST by Clarence The One Eyed Lion
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To: karpov

The difference between a socialist and a communist is the socialist believes the government should control the economy. A communist will kill you if you dont believe it. Bernie and his followers are communists.


122 posted on 02/09/2020 9:42:18 AM PST by lp boonie (Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment)
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To: All

Bernie Sanders campaigned for Marxist party in Reagan era
Washington Examiner ^ | May 30, 2019 | Joseph Simonson
FR Posted on 2/9/2020, 9:58:14 AM by karpov

Bernie Sanders campaigned for the Socialist Workers Party in the 1980 and 1984 presidential campaigns and was investigated by the FBI for his ties to the Marxist group.

Sanders has always played down the extent of his involvement with the party, which included radicals who praised the Soviet Union and Cuban communists, and has denied ever being a member. Asked in 1988 about his role as an SWP elector in 1980, he said: “I was asked to put my name on the ballot and I did, that’s true.” In fact, his ties to the party are deep and enduring.

The 2020 Democratic presidential primary candidate and United States senator from Vermont, now 77, often scoffs at comparisons between his brand of self-described “democratic socialism” and communism. In recent years, he has said he is merely interested in having the United States look more like Sweden, a social democracy with a broad welfare state but a well-functioning private sector.

But his personal files from his time as mayor of Burlington, from 1981 to 1989, archived at the University of Vermont, show that he supported and campaigned for the communist SWP and maintained a close relationship with its senior members. While Democrats campaigned for President Jimmy Carter in 1980 and Walter Mondale in 1984, Sanders spent the Reagan era supporting fringe Marxists with no chance of reaching the White House.

In 1980, Sanders “proudly endorsed and supported” Andrew Pulley, the party’s presidential candidate, who once said that American soldiers should “take up their guns and shoot their officers.” Sanders was one of three electors for Pulley on the Vermont ballot, stating in a press release: “I fully support the SWP’s continued defense of the Cuban revolution.”

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...


123 posted on 02/09/2020 9:44:48 AM PST by Liz (Our side has 8 trillion bullets; the other side doesn't know which bathroom to use.)
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To: Liz

A socialist is a communist who hasn’t finished building the gulags.


124 posted on 02/09/2020 9:49:47 AM PST by GaryCrow
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To: GaryCrow

LOL....cute.


125 posted on 02/09/2020 9:51:32 AM PST by Liz (Our side has 8 trillion bullets; the other side doesn't know which bathroom to use.)
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To: karpov
"Obviously I'm not a Standard White Poodle. I'm a White Klein Poodle".


126 posted on 02/09/2020 9:55:02 AM PST by rightwingcrazy (;-,)
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To: Clarence The One Eyed Lion
Another classy post exposing your low IQ...typical leftwing commie intellect.

ALERT!!!! Leftwing Communist Troller

Clarence The One Eyed Lion
Since Feb 1, 2020

127 posted on 02/09/2020 10:01:03 AM PST by newfreep ("INSIDE EVERY PROGRESSIVE IS A TOTALITARIAN SCREAMING TO GET OUT" - DAVID HOROWITZ)
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To: newfreep

Bug off Mohammed . . .


128 posted on 02/09/2020 10:01:59 AM PST by Clarence The One Eyed Lion
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To: karpov

What’s in your wallet?


129 posted on 02/09/2020 10:04:02 AM PST by windsorknot
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To: karpov; All
".... Sanders also called Trump a “pathological liar” for claiming Sanders was “married in Moscow...."

I don't know where Bernie and his wife were married.

But Bernie disingenuously fails to mention that he and his wife honeymooned in Moscow after getting married.

Who's the pathological liar now, Bernie?

130 posted on 02/09/2020 10:07:21 AM PST by HotHunt (Been there. Done that.)
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To: karpov

Not a communist yet, anyway. But there is a “who says A must say B” kind of logic involved. Follow Sanders down this road and eventually you’ll come to communism and coercion. That’s what will happen when people reject his socialist ideas (however he defines them); then they must be coerced into following them. Communism and the Gulags will follow in due course.


131 posted on 02/09/2020 10:10:54 AM PST by TIElniff (Autonomy is the guise of every graceless heart.)
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To: karpov
Let's use democrat rules. He is a communist until he can prove he isn't.

132 posted on 02/09/2020 10:11:03 AM PST by Right Wing Assault (Kill-googl,TWTR,FCBK,NYT,WaPo,Hwd,CNN,NFL,BLM,CAIR,Antfa,SPLC,ESPN,NPR,NBA,ARP)
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To: karpov



133 posted on 02/09/2020 10:25:09 AM PST by Bon mots
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Comment #134 Removed by Moderator

To: karpov

He’s still a socialist...he hasn’t started the killing yet.


135 posted on 02/09/2020 10:46:22 AM PST by JimRed ( TERM LIMITS, NOW! Build the Wall Faster! TRUTH is the new HATE SPEECH.)
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To: karpov
"Democratic centralism" was the name Lenin gave to his idea of party organization. "People's Democratic Republics" were what Soviet satellite states called themselves during the Cold War era. "Democratic" may just mean opposed to the earlier ruling class, rather than constitutional government. So when somebody says they are for "democratic socialism" just exactly what that means is unclear.

But it's also hard to say just what "Communist" is or means now that the Soviet Union is gone. Just what Bernie would say or do, is anybody's guess. Germany went through a similar situation 20 years ago when the Greens entered the governing coalition and people who'd been revolutionaries 30 years before became government ministers. They didn't try to overthrow the government and establish a dictatorship. They were in the government themselves. But their coalition partners had the upper hand and what the Greens could do was limited by their partners.

136 posted on 02/09/2020 10:46:28 AM PST by x
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To: Cincinnatus.45-70

Well, let’s see...He’s very rich, owns several mansions, has a guaranteed job for life, wants unlimited power as the head of government; wants to take all the people’s money for his purposes, himself and his family; lies like a dog; hides behind the bogus term “democratic socialist”, has no job skills...yep, he’s a communist.


137 posted on 02/09/2020 10:50:13 AM PST by DPMD (uo)
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To: karpov

Walks like a duck...


138 posted on 02/09/2020 10:50:33 AM PST by databoss
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To: karpov

Obviously Bernie doesn’t understand the definition of “Obviously”.


139 posted on 02/09/2020 10:54:10 AM PST by Kickass Conservative (Kill a Commie for your Mommy.)
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To: Clarence The One Eyed Lion

“I think Ayn Rand was a Soviet spy.”

Welcome to Free Republic. Your source for that claim?


140 posted on 02/09/2020 11:05:03 AM PST by plain talk
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