InvestigationThe Democratic primary candidate claims "democratic socialism" and says he is part of the legacy of Roosevelt and his New Deal. On the eve of the crucial Super Tuesday vote, Tuesday March 3, he leads the nomination contest.
When Stephanie Kelton, a heterodox economist, met Bernie Sanders for the first time in 2015, he asked him: " What would you do in my place ? " "Put in place the Franklin D. Roosevelt Charter of Economic Rights"replied the professor, then a professor at the University of Kansas City, who received us in 2019.
Bernie Sanders was not entirely an unknown, independent senator from Vermont, who was preparing to put Hillary Clinton in great difficulty during the Democratic primary for the 2016 election. The Economic Bill of Rights is the testament of the father of the New Deal, this "new deal" which helped, from 1933, to get America out of the terrible crisis of 1929. Broadcasted in January 1944 – back from the Tehran conference (which had reunited Churchill , Roosevelt and Stalin from November 28 to 1st December 1943), President Roosevelt (1882-1945) was too sick to move to the Capitol -, this State of the Union address invited America to add economic rights (living wage, education, housing, retirement , health, etc.) to the political rights guaranteed by the first amendments to the Constitution (freedom of expression, religion, the press, etc.).
Realizing Roosevelt's economic dream
"These political rights have proven inadequate to ensure equality in the pursuit of happiness, a goal proclaimed by the declaration of independence in 1776, declared Roosevelt. True individual freedom cannot exist without economic independence and security. " A will that Bernie Sanders took over in 2015 and then in June 2019, during a speech at George Washington University during which he quoted Roosevelt at length. "We have to recognize that in the XXIe century, in the richest country in the history of the world, economic rights are human rights. This is what I mean by democratic socialism ", argues Sanders.
At 78, the champion of the American left in the Democratic primary in 2020 – who will see or not his advance be confirmed on March 3, during "super Tuesday" (Super Tuesday), voting day for 14 American states and two associated territories – can thus carry out its program as being the realization of Roosevelt's economic dream: nationalization of health insurance, cancellation of student debt, free undergraduate studies, doubling of the minimum wage to $ 15, right to a federal job, finally "Green New Deal" to get out of carbon energy in transportation and electricity in ten years. This historic anchor is decisive in Sanders' strategy, which allows him to manage his socialist label and to legitimize his program and his method.
