On Sunday, New York Magazine ran an op-ed trying to disprove the talking point that Democrat presidential front runner Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) is a communist.
The article states, “while it is unfortunately easy to confuse socialism with communism, the two are not synonymous,” while continuing to say, “As you move left on the ideological spectrum, liberalism bleeds into socialism, but it is difficult to define a fixed point where one ends and the other begins.”
The article also claims that communism is different from socialism because Communism envisions political change occurring through revolution, followed by the establishment of a one-party state, that party representing the sole political organ with a claim to political legitimacy.”
While claiming Bernie does not fit in their definition of “communist,” the author, Jonathan Chait, says Trump is the real “authoritarian” communist. “The president has for decades praised a rogue’s gallery of the world’s most brutal dictators. Trump does not merely overlook or soft-pedal their authoritarianism, as many politicians do out of geopolitical strategy,” writes Chait.
At the end of his argument, Chait writes, “Whatever his flaws, Bernie Sanders is a democrat.”