Presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont will speak at Georgetown this week about what it means to be a democratic socialist in America.
The talk, which takes place on Thursday at 2 p.m. in the university’s historic Gaston Hall, is sponsored by the university’s newly created Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service at the McCourt School of Public Policy.
Sanders’ talk will be webcast live at politics.georgetown.edu.
“This speech is one of those defining moments in a presidential campaign,” said Mo Elleithee, the institute’s executive director and a 20-year veteran of national politics. “For weeks, Senator Sanders and his team have been signalling that he intends to have a thoughtful discussion about what it means to be a ‘democratic socialist.’ We are psyched he chose Georgetown as the place to have that conversation.”
Following his remarks, Sanders will engage in a question-and-answer session with the university community, moderated by Elleithee. A Georgetown University ID is required for entry into the event.
Georgetown students, faculty and staff can share questions and join the conversation at @GUPolitics and #BernieAtGU.
Bernie Sanders plans to give a major address Thursday afternoon on democratic socialism, the philosophy of government that has guided his political career and become a major topic of conversation as he seeks the presidency.
Aides said the speech, which the Vermont senator first advertised a month ago, is now set to be delivered at Georgetown University in Washington.
Aides said Sanders’s speech will also contain a section on foreign policy, with a focus on defeating the Islamic State.
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont will be channeling Franklin D. Roosevelt more than Eugene V. Debs on Thursday afternoon as he delivers the most important speech of his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination: an attempt to demystify Democratic Socialism, his long-held political philosophy, and tie it to his vision of America.
The unstated goal of the speech is to address Mr. Sanders’s biggest challenge: electability. While he is running strong among liberals, many other Democrats see him as an anti-establishment protest candidate from the left-wing fringe who isn’t in the party (he is one of two independents in the Senate). They fear they would be wasting their votes choosing him over Hillary Rodham Clinton in the nomination fight, even though some opinion polls show him doing just as well in the 2016 general election as Mrs. Clinton.
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In explaining Democratic Socialism, which envisions democracies with socialist economic systems, Mr. Sanders plans to position himself as the political heir to one of the Democratic Party’s great heroes, F.D.R, according to Sanders aides who provided a preview of the speech. Mr. Sanders, building on his descriptions of the Roosevelt-backed Social Security program as a “socialist” endeavor, will call for the United States to adopt the so-called second Bill of Rights that Roosevelt proposed in his 1944 State of the Union address to Congress. Roosevelt proposed guaranteeing the right to “a useful and remunerative job” for laborers, farmers and others to earn an adequate wage; housing; medical care; education; social security; and freedom from unfair competition and monopolies.
“All of these rights spell security,” Roosevelt said. “And after this war is won, we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.”
Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) delivers remarks at Georgetown University on democratic socialism, as well as his ideas for defeating the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL).
Airing LIVE Thursday, Nov 19 2:00pm EST on C-SPAN.org
Bernie Sanders has always had a take-me-or-leave-me approach to his status as a self-described democratic socialist. But he will head to Georgetown University Thursday to explain precisely what that label means and why his values fit squarely in the American political system.
The Democratic presidential candidate has long been the only member of Congress even remotely self-associated with the word "socialist." But Sanders' bet is that things have changed -- and the label doesn't carry the baggage it once did.
Democratic activists in Iowa surveyed by CNN this fall in Iowa, at the annual Jefferson Jackson Dinner, said they were quite fine with the term "democratic socialism."
"Well I'm not afraid of that label at all. I think a lot of it actually defines who we are as Democrats," said Kristi Keast, a Hillary Clinton supporter.
Anne Fultz, a Sanders supporter, said, "We are already a 'socialist' country. I have Social Security, you have Social Security. We already have that in place."
Sanders embraces the label, but for decades, "socialist" has been among the meanest insults you can hurl at an American politician. About three in five Americans say they have a negative view of socialism, according to the Pew Research Center.
Yet many developed nations have some socialist policies within their free-market systems, in the form of basic services provided by the government. In many European countries, the government provides college education and child care. In the United Kingdom, the government provides medical care through the National Health Service. Sanders is fond of noting that the United States is no exception, with its widely popular Social Security program.
Still, Sanders's vocal embrace of socialism marks a radical change in tone from American politics. He can either present his views as a natural extension of policies that are already taken for granted in the United States, or as a revolution made necessary by the failure of the contemporary economy to improve the lives of the working class.
The first option allows Sanders to make his ideas more palatable to a skeptical electorate. The second allows him to appeal to the frustrations of many Americans, for whom real median household income has been declining for 15 years. His approach in his speech will suggest the kind of campaign he intends to run.