“Daily Show” host Jon Stewart says “Democratic Socialism” is no more “socialism” than Social Security

JON STEWART: And now we’re in that same bullshit place, where all these new ideas come out of the Democrats-these democratic socialists-and people say, They’re crazy. Well, generally, their crazy ideas are not where the energy is. The energy isn’t around, like, We shouldn’t have prisons or borders. The energy is around a belief in their economic populism. And when you call it socialism, I think it’s a misnomer-in the same way that calling Social Security socialism, that is kind of a misnomer. It is about strengthening a safety net for a country that has suffered too long from overvaluing capital and money and undervaluing labor and work! So I don’t get the whole hullabaloo. BEN WIKLER: I think one of the reasons you see some candidates catching fire right now is that they speak directly to what a total meltdown crisis we are in as a country and what people are experiencing in their day-to-day lives. Then they tell people, You can do something about this. There are candidates who identify as centrists running in some states and democratic socialists in others- It is a big tent. And I would say, right now, the most exciting parts of the tent come out wherever you are geographically-where people say, This is not working, and we need to change it. We don’t need to go back to something that wasn’t so great before. We need to go forward to something- Here is what we are going to do: X, Y and Z. They lay it out. Again, this is the plan. When you get into power, you need to be willing to change how the system works so you can actually change policy, deliver for people and sustain it. If the U.S. Supreme Court-to take one example-keeps striking down everything a Democrat does, anything intended to protect democracy from the power of big money.

Here’s Jon Stewart’s full interview with Ben Wikler, the former chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, about his new book, “This Is The Plan: How to End America’s Meltdown and Save Democracy.”
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