In a speech yesterday at George Washington University in Washington DC, the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders brilliantly articulated what he means when he calls himself a democratic socialist. Sanders first found his ideology and political voice in the Young People’s Socialist League, the youth section of the ailing Socialist Party of America. Even in its weakened state, however, American socialism was able to nurture and train Sanders. Sanders’ speech rooted democratic socialism in American soil, in popular desires for peace and security. Yesterday, Sanders expanded his democratic socialist vision further, using the rhetoric of freedom that’s a regular trope in American politics, but giving it a socialist gloss.

Source: The Guardian June 13, 2019 15:17 UTC