The candidates running for the 2016 presidential election truly are the bottom of the barrel. None of them are qualified to lead a herd of cattle into a slaughterhouse, let alone a nation. Although the playing field will likely change between now and the actual election the current darling child of the Democratic Party is Bernie Sanders. The interesting thing about Sanders is that he, unlike most of those wishy washy ninnies in the Democratic Party, outright admits he’s a socialist. There are two major types of socialists, national and international, and the question has been which of the two schools does Sanders belong to. Now we know:
Ezra Klein: You said being a democratic socialist means a more international view. I think if you take global poverty that seriously, it leads you to conclusions that in the US are considered out of political bounds. Things like sharply raising the level of immigration we permit, even up to a level of open borders. About sharply increasing …
Bernie Sanders: Open borders? No, that’s a Koch brothers proposal.
Ezra Klein: Really?
Bernie Sanders: Of course. That’s a right-wing proposal, which says essentially there is no United States. …
Ezra Klein: But it would make …
Bernie Sanders: Excuse me …
Ezra Klein: It would make a lot of global poor richer, wouldn’t it?
Bernie Sanders: It would make everybody in America poorer —you’re doing away with the concept of a nation state, and I don’t think there’s any country in the world that believes in that. If you believe in a nation state or in a country called the United States or UK or Denmark or any other country, you have an obligation in my view to do everything we can to help poor people. What right-wing people in this country would love is an open-border policy. Bring in all kinds of people, work for $2 or $3 an hour, that would be great for them. I don’t believe in that. I think we have to raise wages in this country, I think we have to do everything we can to create millions of jobs.
He wants to keep all of the “benefits” of socialism to the United States so he’s firmly in the national socialist camp. It’s also hilarious to hear him claim that open borders is a Koch brothers conspiracy, err, proposal. The Koch brothers are to the left-wing statists what George Soros is to the right-wing statists, a boogeyman responsible for all that is wrongs in the world.
Sanders also subscribes to the camp that believes open borders would hamper the creation of millions of jobs. Apparently he thinks the government should protect the jobs of individuals who are legitimately challenged by individuals for foreign lands who have no formal education and can barely speak English. Personally I disagree (because if you suck at your job that much you deserve to be replaced) but I also don’t acknowledge the nation state as a legitimate thing, unlike national socialist Sanders.