Politics

Stephen Colbert Says Socialism Has Been Tainted In America And Bernie Sanders Disagreed

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Comedian Stephen Colbert said socialism may be tainted here in the U.S. on “The Late Show” Tuesday, but his guest Sen. Bernie Sanders disagreed.

“Why do you need to call yourself ‘socialist,'” Colbert said. “Because that has such– that’s freighted with so much negativity in the United States.”

“I’m just saying that, like, people are very excited about Ocasio-Cortez … But the people she campaigned for did not win their primaries,” he continued. “Only half the people you have campaigned for have won their primaries so far. So maybe there’s a little, there’s a little taint to socialism that turns people off.”

Sanders said he doesn’t believe socialism is tainted and said the ideology has made great strides in recent years, becoming more mainstream than ever before.

“I don’t really think so,” Sanders replied. “I think the real issue is that the ideas that we have been talking about, almost without exception, Stephen, are now ideas that are mainstream ideas that are supported by the vast majority of American people.”

“I think, also, people in their gut understand that we’re living in a really strange moment in American history, above and beyond Donald Trump — which is very strange,” he added.

Sanders claimed America has entered into a system of “out-of-control capitalism” and blamed society’s problems on the “greed” of the 1 percent.

“We’re looking at a time where we have out-of-control capitalism, where the greed of the people on top is really unbelievable,” Sanders declared.

“Right now, right now, in America, you’ve got three people who own more wealth than the bottom 50 percent of the the American people. You’ve got the one-tenth of 1 percent owning more wealth than the bottom. You have one guy, Jeff Bezos, of Amazon, his wealth is increasing every single day by $250 million a day, but he pays his workers— many of his workers— wages that are so low that many of them are on food stamps or Medicaid.”

“I think people are sick and tired of the greed and the power of a handful of people on top,” he concluded. “They want a government which represents all of us, not just the 1 percent.”

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