# Republicans itching to use Hammer & Sickle logo against Sanders. Best response? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [February 2, 2016, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-itching-to-use-hammer-sickle-logo-against-sanders-best-response/744898 "2016-02-02T01:28:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![davida03801](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5e925/32.png) [@davida03801](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davida03801)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-itching-to-use-hammer-sickle-logo-against-sanders-best-response/744898/41 "2016-02-02T18:18:17Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > And Jane Fonda went to North Vietnam, but that don’t make her no Commie. Does not matter. When the paint brush starts working that the label for him. I find it somewhat interesting that defenders of Bernie do not want his early in life actions to besmirch his name now. Not like you would not use the equivalent to paint who you not like on the other side. Sorry its a fair paint brush to use, and he has plenty in his past to fuel it. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-itching-to-use-hammer-sickle-logo-against-sanders-best-response/744898/42 "2016-02-02T18:19:19Z")
Remember that I’m just telling you guys what Republicans(and to a lesser extent, Clinton allies) are going to be pulling out. I think the reason these attacks will be more effective than you think are: 1. Sanders calls himself a socialist. If he was running as a moderate Democrat, this would be Clinton-type stuff. But people will be inclined to interpret these things more negatively given Sanders’ self-labelling. 2. Once the public gets a load of what Sanders’ proposed tax rates are, they’ll already be inclined to think of him as damn near Stalin. While Sanders is defending himself from “Hammer and Sickle” attacks, he also has to defend his tax plan, which for the middle class, mostly just substitutes taxes for health insurance premiums. He’s going to need a lot of skill as a politician to navigate these waters. ---
**Author:** ![Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/do_not_taunt/32/2968_2.png) [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Do_Not_Taunt)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-itching-to-use-hammer-sickle-logo-against-sanders-best-response/744898/43 "2016-02-02T18:24:25Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Remember that I’m just telling you guys what Republicans(and to a lesser extent, Clinton allies) are going to be pulling out. I think the reason these attacks will be more effective than you think are: > > 1. Sanders calls himself a socialist. If he was running as a moderate Democrat, this would be Clinton-type stuff. But people will be inclined to interpret these things more negatively given Sanders’ self-labelling. > > 2. Once the public gets a load of what Sanders’ proposed tax rates are, they’ll already be inclined to think of him as damn near Stalin. While Sanders is defending himself from “Hammer and Sickle” attacks, he also has to defend his tax plan, which for the middle class, mostly just substitutes taxes for health insurance premiums. He’s going to need a lot of skill as a politician to navigate these waters. Nice retreat from “Sanders…thinks our historic adversaries were right” to “Republicans are going to claim that Sanders thinks our historic adversaries were right.” You went from an uncited and incorrect position to a prediction about the future that is likely correct, and you probably didn’t even notice! ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-itching-to-use-hammer-sickle-logo-against-sanders-best-response/744898/44 "2016-02-02T18:30:56Z")
> [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](#): > > Nice retreat from “Sanders…thinks our historic adversaries were right” to “Republicans are going to claim that Sanders thinks our historic adversaries were right.” You went from an uncited and incorrect position to a prediction about the future that is likely correct, and you probably didn’t even notice! In adaher’s defence, he’s a right wing activist who probably hasn’t given quite enough thought into what that means. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-itching-to-use-hammer-sickle-logo-against-sanders-best-response/744898/45 "2016-02-02T18:33:29Z")
Run as a nationalist-going to the USSR is kid’s stuff compared to the way Wall Street and the plutocracy has been shafting the working people of this country. Don’t just say they are greedy or corrupt-say that the 1%ers are traitors whose primary loyalty is to Mammon not the flag. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-itching-to-use-hammer-sickle-logo-against-sanders-best-response/744898/46 "2016-02-02T18:39:58Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > That’s a good comeback too, but it doesn’t get you out of the moral dimension. Republicans can be criticized for too much moralization in foreign policy and not enough realism. Sanders also embraces a moralistic foreign policy, except he thinks our historic adversaries were right. > > It’s a far cry from Obama’s foreign policy, which if anything has been coldly realist. Sanders is pretty realist on foreign policy-he is no Ralph Nader who thinks the US should withdraw its military from all over the world but on the other hand he is extremely sceptical of regime change in the Middle East. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-itching-to-use-hammer-sickle-logo-against-sanders-best-response/744898/47 "2016-02-02T18:42:45Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Run as a nationalist-going to the USSR is kid’s stuff compared to the way Wall Street and the plutocracy has been shafting the working people of this country. Don’t just say they are greedy or corrupt-say that the 1%ers are traitors whose primary loyalty is to Mammon not the flag. Changing the subject is often criticized on the Dope, but it’s brilliant political strategy. Clinton did it in his run. “Forget about my personal life, let’s talk about the issues.” It worked well, as it should have given the times. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-itching-to-use-hammer-sickle-logo-against-sanders-best-response/744898/48 "2016-02-02T19:31:34Z")
Conservatives itching to use 80 year old Red Scare tactics on Bernie Sanders. Should work well on people voting from their death beds! ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-itching-to-use-hammer-sickle-logo-against-sanders-best-response/744898/49 "2016-02-02T20:04:32Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Talk about all the popular programs that were deemed communist when they first came out and talk about how conservatives were wrong to oppose those programs then and are wrong to oppose programs now. > > Medicare, medicaid, minimum wage, social security, child labor laws, etc. > > Progressives have no view of history. Very clever – you’re suggesting that Sanders respond with an argument that “The American people are communists too; they just don’t know it.” Powerful stuff. ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-itching-to-use-hammer-sickle-logo-against-sanders-best-response/744898/50 "2016-02-02T20:18:44Z")
“Mr. Trump. Tear. Down. That. Wall.” ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-itching-to-use-hammer-sickle-logo-against-sanders-best-response/744898/51 "2016-02-02T20:24:07Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > Very clever – you’re suggesting that Sanders respond with an argument that “The American people are communists too; they just don’t know it.” > > Powerful stuff. Substituting the word “socialist,” he’s pretty much saying that already. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-itching-to-use-hammer-sickle-logo-against-sanders-best-response/744898/52 "2016-02-02T21:18:24Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > When you’re as old as he is, 30 years isn’t youthful naivete. This is not John Kerry throwing his medals. That wasn’t youthful naivete, that was a grown man protesting sending good men to kill and die for a bright shining lie. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-itching-to-use-hammer-sickle-logo-against-sanders-best-response/744898/53 "2016-02-02T21:21:03Z")
“Socialist” used to have some meaning, the prof in the corduroy jacket, with leather patches on the elbows smoking a pipe and boring the shit out of undergrads. Now, its just anybody to the left of Calvin Coolidge. ---
**Author:** ![Hank\_Beecher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hank_beecher/32/7275_2.png) [@Hank\_Beecher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hank_Beecher)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-itching-to-use-hammer-sickle-logo-against-sanders-best-response/744898/54 "2016-02-02T21:34:56Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Talk about all the popular programs that were deemed communist when they first came out and talk about how conservatives were wrong to oppose those programs then and are wrong to oppose programs now. > > Medicare, medicaid, minimum wage, social security, child labor laws, etc. One of the big arguments against those programs was that no degree of social welfare programs would ever be enough. Eventually, the opponents said, the proponents of government entitlements would work to draw more and more of the economy into their wheelhouse. People had crazy conspiracies that leaders would arise seeking to do away with certain private enterprises, like medical insurance, and that they would work to funnel more and more of the economy through government coffers. No, they were told, we are only going to mandate that a small portion of everyone’s income and wealth be confiscated, to take care of the most needy and helpless in our society, and only when government stewardship is clearly the best way to do so. They were reminded that those with common sense would prevail, that unending expansion of government power and productivity mitigating taxation would always be opposed by thinking people. And they were right. Here we are. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-itching-to-use-hammer-sickle-logo-against-sanders-best-response/744898/55 "2016-02-02T22:37:45Z")
> [@Hank\_Beecher](#): > > It would go great with his rhetoric. Not too far off the mark… > > “Let us wage a moral and political war against the Jews, on Wall Street and elsewhere, whose policies and greed are destroying the middle class of America.” > > “What kind of nation are we when we give tax breaks to Jews, but we can’t take care of the elderly and the children.” > > “How do we say, why do you keep voting for people who are giving more tax breaks to Jews, who are going to send your jobs abroad, not going to let you form a union, not going to allow your kids to go to college? Why do you keep voting for these guys?” > > “The votes elected officials make should be based on the best interests of the American people, not the fear of retribution when shadowy groups spend millions of dollars on negative advertisements.” > > “The Jews are apparently leaving America. They’re giving up their citizenship. These great lovers of America who made their money in this country-when you ask them to pay their fair share of taxes they run abroad.” > > “The Jews pay an effective tax rate lower than nurses or truck drivers. That makes no sense at all. There has to be real tax reform, and the Jews will pay.” > > “The point is change can come about, but it only comes about when millions of people are actively involved in political struggle, the Jews may have the money, but we have the people.” > > “To be honest with you, I worry about Jewish ownership in media, where you have a handful of Jews largely controlling what we see, hear and read.” > > “Jews have enormous power over the Republican Party, enormous power over the Democratic Party.” > > “What Jews are doing is really not much different from what gangsters and loan sharks do who make predatory loans. While the Jews wear three-piece suits and don’t break the knee caps of those who can’t pay back, they still are destroying people’s lives.” Unless you have actual sources to support this nonsense you appear to be engaged in a rather inappropriate bit of nonsense. Knock it off. [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-itching-to-use-hammer-sickle-logo-against-sanders-best-response/744898/56 "2016-02-02T23:05:53Z")
Anyone have any actual evidence that the word “socialist” has negative connotations for most Americans\* today\*? I have seen (but can’t find) a source saying that it has more positive associations than “capitalist” for Americans under 30. ---
**Author:** ![BigAppleBucky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigapplebucky/32/178_2.png) [@BigAppleBucky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigAppleBucky)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-itching-to-use-hammer-sickle-logo-against-sanders-best-response/744898/57 "2016-02-02T23:18:17Z")
> [@River\_Hippie](#): > > Let’s say Sanders wins the nomination. I have heard that Republican groups have ads ready to go branding Sanders with the hammer and sickle logo. What would be his best response? My first inclination is for Bernie to give a detailed analysis of his interpretation of “Democratic Socialist” and why the American public should not be alarmed. Then I think, no way. The American public won’t listen to a “detailed analysis”, they want a sound bite. > How would he best answer? He’s already given an answer of sorts. When asked if he wanted the USA to resemble Norway or Denmark, he replied, “What’s wrong with that?”. And he’s right. ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-itching-to-use-hammer-sickle-logo-against-sanders-best-response/744898/58 "2016-02-02T23:19:57Z")
Or, alternatively: anyone able to offer a single real-life example of an actual person who said anything like “I initially thought Bernie Sanders made a lot of sense and considered voting for him, but I could never vote for anyone who calls himself a socialist”? Based on an actual personal aversion to the term “socialist”, that is, not on pragmatic considerations of perceived electability. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-itching-to-use-hammer-sickle-logo-against-sanders-best-response/744898/59 "2016-02-02T23:20:40Z")
> [@BigAppleBucky](#): > > He’s already given an answer of sorts. When asked if he wanted the USA to resemble Norway or Denmark, he replied, “What’s wrong with that?”. And he’s right. What did we even need a revolution for? We would have been better off just staying with England like Canada did. ---
**Author:** ![Hank\_Beecher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hank_beecher/32/7275_2.png) [@Hank\_Beecher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hank_Beecher)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-itching-to-use-hammer-sickle-logo-against-sanders-best-response/744898/60 "2016-02-02T23:21:32Z")
> [@Thing\_Fish](#): > > Anyone have any actual evidence that the word “socialist” has negative connotations for most Americans\* today\*? I have seen (but can’t find) a source saying that it has more positive associations than “capitalist” for Americans under 30. There’s this: [In U.S., Socialist Presidential Candidates Least Appealing](http://www.gallup.com/poll/183713/socialist-presidential-candidates-least-appealing.aspx) > [@](#): > > WASHINGTON, D.C. – As the 2016 presidential election field takes shape, more than nine in 10 Americans say they would vote for a qualified presidential candidate who is Catholic, a woman, black, Hispanic or Jewish. Less than half of Americans would vote for a candidate who is a socialist. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-itching-to-use-hammer-sickle-logo-against-sanders-best-response/744898.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-itching-to-use-hammer-sickle-logo-against-sanders-best-response/744898.md?page=4)