Bernie Sanders’ ideas often come under fire by the establishment for being “too radical.” They seem to love throwing that word around almost as much as they love throwing around the word “unelectable.” Noam Chomsky, an MIT professor who is also one of the most celebrated left-wing thinkers and speakers, seems to disagree however.
Chomsky answered a question about Sanders’ policies at an event on Tuesday evening. He supported what Sanders has been saying all along: his ideas are not radical because a majority of the U.S. population supports them already. On healthcare, he cited a particularly interesting statistic:
“When Obama put through the Affordable Care Act, there was, you recall, a public option. But that was dropped. It was dropped even though it was supported by about almost two-thirds of the population. You go back earlier, say, to the Reagan years, about 70 percent of the population thought that national healthcare should be in the Constitution, because it’s such an obvious right. And, in fact, about 40 percent of the population thought it was in the Constitution, again, because it’s such an obvious right.”
If over 70 percent of the population supported it back in the Reagan years, it really seems that healthcare for all is not such a radical option.
Chomsky also cited the fact that Bernie’s ideas are actually pretty tame when comparing them to the FDR or Eisenhower years. When someone like Chomsky looks at the political landscape today, he sees a spectrum that has shifted more to the right on both sides. The Democrats have become centrists, and the Republicans have all managed to move almost universally to the extreme right, leading to the crazy extremism we have today.
Chomsky mentioned one serious upside to this election cycle even if Bernie loses. His popular movement has caused the Democratic party and Hillary Clinton to become more progressive, at least in their rhetoric. If they want to win over Sanders’ extremely loyal supporters in the general election, their promises and actions will become more progressive as well.
Check out the video of Chomsky on Democracy Now.
Featured image by jeanbaptisteparis via Flickr, available under a Creative Commons 2.0 license.
