Bernie Sanders’ Problem With Public Fear and Friendliness

Sanders’s presidential campaign is often criticized because of its connection to socialism and his irascibe persona (Photo Credit: Getty Images)

By Kevin C. Peterson

In the wake of his under performance during Super Tuesday’s multi-state primaries, Bernie Sanders, presumed until now to be a presidential frontrunner, is facing two problems: fear and friendliness.

Let’s take fear first.

Sanders is an avowed socialist — which in theory, is not a problem. His brand of democratic socialism simply happens to remain an American problem, a shunned system of governance believed to be antithetical to the American way of life.

Socialism has for a long time been associated by Americans with communism. For decades, Soviet Union communism was used by US political leaders as an example against which American democratic exceptionalism has been highlighted. Opposition to communism and its socialistic tenets has become an American rite of political passage.

It was in the 1950s and 60s that Russian statecraft— and the brand of collectivist economic practices employed by nation states like China — that turned socialism into pariah political status on the international stage, where the priorities of centralized statism and the control of the means of production within the economy displayed a glaring contrast against American forms of individualism, capitalism and private ownership.