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Anonymous
5/17/2026
Root Resolution: "Warren and Sanders are not radicals, they are moderate social democrats by European standards"

This view is based on some doing some basic research on both Sander's and Warren's websites. They both have proposed systemic changes that will tackle economic inequality. Progressive taxation, a wealth tax, a higher minimum wage, etc. It's mostly about reversing the past few decades that reduced taxes on the wealthy and allowing wages to stagnate. I don't see anything radical there. Anything too radical or against the constitution would be challenged in the courts which are currently conservative. So I think all this worry about Sanders and Warren is not based on anything they've put forward. It's more of a knee-jerk reaction to change. Change that a lot of people in the working class would like to see and benefit the most from.

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Anonymous
5/17/2026 07:41 PM

Sanders' healthcare proposal is pretty extreme for nearly every country in Europe. The commonality it has is being "universal". European countries don't much ban private insurance. France and Germany have excellent systems with private insurance as a key portion. Most aren't completely free at the point of service. Nearly none of them are ubercomprehensive as Sanders' is. That's the centerpiece of his run and it isn't mainstream there.

The wealth tax is pretty unusual. The Netherlands calls their box 3 a wealth tax, but it really a capital gains tax on profits from investments at 30%. It's very different than what Sanders is proposing. There are only four countries in Europe with an actual wealth tax as Sanders is proposing. And even among these, they are all far lower than Warren and Sanders proposals, which are draconian for any country that I'm aware of. Sanders levels before the wealth tax kicks in seem higher than the four countries in Europe with a wealth tax though.

The cancelling of all student debt is pretty far out there. I don't know of another country that did that. It should be mentioned that in places with free college, which isn't universal in Europe, obviously wouldn't have debt to cancel.

Limiting CEO compensation is an EU proposal, but it is simply allowing shareholders to do so and not government mandated, as he is proposing.

There are some rent control proposals in cities like Berlin and London, but national rent control isn't the norm at all.

I think it's not accurate at all to call him a moderate in Europe. He's a lefty. There is nothing wrong with that, but there is a meme driven by Sanders himself that he is in the center in Europe, with the leader of Denmarks pushing back against Sanders' claims. There is an odd meme from Sanders and his supporters about Nordic countries that makes them seem like the ideal countries for Sanders' ideas, but it isn't really true. These countries pretty much all had large "neoliberal" reforms in the 90's that led to large increases in income and economic growth, which gets ignored. Most of them today have far less business regulations than the US currently does. Their income tax systems tend to be more regressive than the US tax code, with a VAT (national sales tax) that isn't means tested and low levels of income taxed at much higher rates than we do. They just have better cradle to grave welfare systems, which is great. But it's not accurate to claim that the Nordic model is "like what Sanders would envision." Some aspects are, many are not.

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