Xena, In the past Bernie would be considered a mainstream New Deal Democrat. The fact that he's considered an evil socialist now says more about the hard Right turn the US made since the 1980s.
But Americans still strongly favor Social Security, Medicare, child labor laws, minimum wage, unemployment insurance, regulation of finance and industry, government funding for roads and infrastructure projects, etc. All these came out of the 'socialist' New Deal. But things swing to extremes, and the next thing you know there's an emerging welfare state, with lifetime dependency, break up of the family, etc. So there has to be a balance.
Unfortunately the deregulation that started in the 1980s also went out of control, leading to the repeal of Glass Steagall and the legalization of every form of Derivative. The financial sector/Wall Street now fully runs the country, and they're the ones pushing for severe austerity, cutting social spending. Meanwhile they spend $27 Trillion bailing out themselves after their Derivatives monster blew up in 2008.
The solution is to re-regulate and rein in the too big to jail banks, bring back Glass Steagall, ban many types of Derivatives, impose a Wall Street transaction tax (would effectively end flash trading and most derivatives activity), and ultimately nationalize the Federal Reserve. We need a central bank but not one that is privately owned by rapacious banksters. Once freed of the dead weight of this bankster cabal, the US can issue its own credit and re-industrialize the country, rebuild the crumbling infrastructure, pay for basic social services, education, health care, etc.
But unfortunately this 'money power' has become the intractable vampire squid predicted by Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson -
"I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me and the bankers in the rear. Of the two, the one at my rear is my greatest foe."
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered"
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