[S]en. Bernie Sanders told the crowd at George Washington University on Wednesday that the U.S. is at a crossroads unseen since the 1930s and people must choose either oligarchy and authoritarianism or his brand of democratic socialism.
“Today, America and the world are once again moving towards authoritarianism — and the same right-wing forces of oligarchy, corporatism, nationalism, racism and xenophobia are on the march, pushing us to make the apocalyptically wrong choice that Europe made in the last century,” Sanders said in Washington, D.C.
Sanders’ remarks had been billed as a “major address” by his campaign, promising to roll out policies in the spirit of former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, which helped put the country on the path to recovery amid the Great Depression.
Sanders forwent nuanced policy discussions, but did rattle off the need for a $15 minimum wage, universal health care and free higher education — proposals he has long pushed for reframed as an modern-day “economic bill of rights.”
“Today I am proposing we complete the unfinished work of Franklin Roosevelt and the Democratic Party by putting forth a 21st century economic bill of rights,” he said.
“That means: the right to a decent job that pays a living wage, the right to health care, the right to a quality education, the right to affordable housing, the right to a clean environment and the right to a secure retirement,” Sanders said.
While Sanders was quick to draw parallels between himself and Roosevelt, he did not mention any of the other candidates in the currently crowded Democratic primary — including former Vice President Joe Biden, who is ahead of the Vermont senator in most polls, or Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, who has surged to within a few points of Sanders in Iowa.
Sanders did target President Donald Trump and attacked the president for supporting socialist policies that prop up big business and industry, but opposing socialist programs that help working people.
“When Trump attacks socialism, I am reminded of what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, ‘This country has socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the poor,’” Sanders said. “He believes in corporate socialism for the rich and powerful. I believe in a democratic socialism that works for the working families of this country.”
Veering away from his standard economic injustice talking points, Sanders — whose family is Jewish — touched on how right-wing nationalism that is rising up in Poland, Austria, Hungary, Brazil and other countries is eerily similar the fascism of the 20th century that culminated in the Holocaust.
“In Europe, the anger and despair was ultimately harnessed by authoritarian demagogues who fused corporatism, nationalism, racism and xenophobia into a political movement that amassed totalitarian power, destroyed democracy, and ultimately murdering millions of people — including members of my own family,” he said.
Sanders said people in the United States have the choice of going down the route that Europe did in the 1930s and 1940s, or choosing a different path. “It is the path that I call democratic socialism,” he said.
Sanders’ speech repacking his economic agenda comes as he has received criticism from Republicans for being a communist. The Republican National Committee has even gone so far as recently issuing press releases titled “Bernie loves commies,” Politico has reported.
The Vermont senator had also received recent scrutiny from the New York Times and other news outlets for his trips to the former Soviet Union and Nicaragua during his time as mayor of Burlington. Politico also published a story about Sanders’ finances that was widely criticized for using anti-semitic tropes.
Sanders, who is not known to apologize for his views, did not miss the opportunity Wednesday to take a veiled shot at this criticism from the media and politicians.
Sanders said Roosevelt too faced attacks from conservatives in the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, and in most cases “the same scare tactics then that we experience today — red baiting, xenophobia, racism and anti-Semitism.”
Then, the Vermont senator quoted a line from a 1936 Roosevelt campaign speech.
“‘We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace — business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering,’” Sanders said.
“‘Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today,” he added, continuing to quote Roosevelt. “They are unanimous in their hate for me — and I welcome their hatred.’”
