With Bernie Sanders Now Dominating NH Polls, Time to Review: Exactly How Radical is He?

By Rachel Alexander Published on January 22, 2016• No Comments 
 



AP Photo/Stephen B. Morton

Bernie Sanders has come a long way since I called him a long-shot candidate for president in May of last year. Since then, he’s risen to within single digits behind Hillary Clinton in national polls, is about tied with her in Iowa polls, and is well ahead of her in polls for the early, bellwether state of New Hampshire. Reason enough to review the man’s curious background, both because many people weren’t paying attention to the man when he threw his hat into the ring, and because fresh curiosities have emerged since that time.

As for his Senate record, he has sponsored only a single bill during his entire eight terms in Congress, but that hasn’t stopped him from promising the moon on the presidential campaign trail. He has made expensive — and, some would say, wildly unrealistic — promises to make everything from college to healthcare free.

This is in keeping with his long-running flirtations with socialism, and not always just the soft socialism of Western Europe. Sanders may not have gone as far as advocating for a police state and the abolition of private property, but he does appear to have been sympathetic to the Communist movement. In 1985, he took a trip to Managua, where a Marxist-Leninist government had taken power. He called it a “heroic revolution.” While Russia was still under Communism, Sanders hung a Soviet flag in his office......

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