This is a great clip: Chris Matthews asks Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz that is the difference between a Democrat and a socialist.
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Matthews had Wasserman-Schultz on his show Thursday evening and when he the topic of Bernie Sanders came up, Matthews implied Sanders would embarrass the party by being too far to the left, that maybe they wouldn’t want him on prime-time national TV.
Schultz skirted the question, replying, “The more important question is – what’s the difference between being a Democrat and being a Republican?
Tell me what’s the difference between you and a socialist”, he said.
She said he should get to speak, but Matthews kept prodding away to see if he would be allowed to speak in primetime instead of “when nobody’s watching”.
“Bernie Sanders has been a good Democrat”, Wasserman-Schultz said.
Matthews then threw the hardball, asking Schultz, “What is the difference between a Democrat and a socialist?”
“I used to think there was a big difference, what do you think it is?”
Wasserman-Schultz talked up his “progressive populist message” that people like, when Matthews asked her point-blank, “What’s the difference between a Democrat and a socialist?”
Sanders, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president, has enjoyed a groundswell of support from Democrats dissatisfied by Hillary Clinton. “The relevant debate that we’ll be having over the course of this campaign”, she said, “is what’s the difference between being a Democrat and being a Republican”.
Again, Schultz was unable to answer the question and tried to steer the conversation in a different direction. The story caught on among conservatives because it fits into a narrative that liberal extremism (in this case, socialism) is becoming mainstream in the Democratic Party. I used to think there was a big difference.
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Social democracies have been popular in Europe, especially in the Scandinavian countries which Sanders often cites as examples of ideal policy. And that was precisely Matthews’ point.
