Sanders Campaign Co-Chair Defends Democratic Socialism

AMANPOUR: According to NBC News “Wall Street Journal” this month, 19 percent of voters have a positive view of socialism, while a majority, 53 percent, have a negative perception. PBS News Hour in a later poll says only 28 percent of adults have a favorable view of socialism, while 58 percent say they have an unfavorable one. Are you concerned, and you must have thought about this because the opposition wants to run against a socialist or a communist, as already the Trump campaign are calling him, have you thought about how you’re going to push back on that if he becomes the nominee, and frankly, throughout the rest of this nominating process?

NINA TURNER, NATIONAL CO-CHAIR, SANDERS 2020: Absolutely. You know, that word is being bantied about to scare people. But when you talk to people about what democratic socialism really means, it’s about government of the people, by the people, and for the people. And for example — and Christiane, I’ve traveled all over this country and I’ve had yet to have anybody say to me that we don’t like democratic socialism in terms of what does that mean for changing their material conditions. When people talk about needing health care, being either underinsured or uninsured, that is democratic socialism when the senator is saying that in this country we need to take the lead and join our other sisters and brothers and other industrialized nations and see Medicare for All as the moral imperative that it is and not commodify it. When he talks about making sure that the pharmaceutical industry is not able to continue to charge Americans higher prices for the drugs that people need to live, that is what democratic socialism means. And when the senator stands up and talks about a legal system that is racist, that is built on the backs and the bodies of black men in particular, and that when he gets into office, he is going to change that, that is democratic socialism. To stand up in the United States of America and say that everybody is entitled to clean water, clean air, clean food, that is democratic socialism. The reverend doctor, Martin Luther King Jr. was a democratic socialist. He endited this nation on materialism, poverty and racism and said that we need to do a new thing. So, all — simply all Senator Bernie Sanders is saying is that the system is rigged and that he will come into that White House and change it so that people don’t continue to suffer in the way that they are. So, it is not controlled by Wall Street. That it is not controlled by the fossil fuel industry and other corporate interests that hold people down. That is the kind of conversation that we are having with people all across the country. And as we can see by the first three contests, the people of Iowa, the people of New Hampshire, the people of Nevada, are not worried about that.