Last night in Madison, Wisconsin, Bernie delivered a powerfully progressive speech to approximately 10,000 attendees -- the largest campaign event of the 2016 election thus far, Democratic or Republican.
It was pretty great, and it's worth clicking around to listen to various parts: classic Bernie emphasizing the need for good progressive governance in America so that all citizens can live decent, meaningful lives.
Most folks don't know, however, that JFK also gave a great progressive speech in Madison, but in Madison Square Garden -- in 1962. He was speaking about universal health care, in the face of tremendous opposition from American doctors -- the American Medical Association -- who opposed universal health care before the sadistic health insurers made it their cause.
(You can watch the full speech here.)
What does JFK talk about? He mentions how the United States is sadly behind England -- and the rest of Europe -- in providing health care for all citizens. He reminds the huge crowd that hospitals -- populated by doctors threatening not to accept social security payments for their services -- were built by the government. He reminds folks that it was the government that gave pioneers land to settle the west -- and the government that set aside land and funding for our great land-grant colleges and universities.
Next time someone refers to Bernie as a "communist" or a "bloody socialist," you might want to ask them if they would say the same about JFK? Similarly, Bernie might want to respond to journalists with this rhetoric -- like hopelessly cynical Matthew Yglesias -- if they ask him just how could he possibly beat Hillary and secure the nomination, let alone win the general election.
Bernie is not a radical, he's not an extremist -- and he's a pretty crappy socialist, having ---- rightfully, in the spirit of compromise and progress -- supported the corporatist Affordable Care Act.
In his thinking, however, Bernie does represent the dominant political tradition for the last 70-some-odd years in most of Northern and Central Europe (Italy, too) -- a center-left social democratic politics that, while wildly popular in Europe (suffering, somewhat now, however, due to the Eurozone crisis and migration challenges), was never able to gain traction in the United States, perhaps due to our problems with racism or our problematic presidential system.
Is Bernie a radical extremist determined to bring down the United States to Argentine or Greek levels of misery? Well, was JFK?