Does anyone hear the name “Bernie Sanders” and immediately think “Democrat”?

An acquaintance of mine (in her mid-30s) asked me if I was backing Bernie. I said “no.” She asked me why and I told her because he was a socialist. She said, “so what?” I said, “I don’t want to live in a socialist country.” She asked why again, to which I said “because I don’t want to live in Cuba, the US is the greatest country in the world and I want to keep it that way.”<br><br>What was interesting to me was that she wasn’t really upset at me for saying I didn’t want to live in Cuba, or that the US was the greatest country in the world. She didn’t really even respond to those statements. The only thing she was inclined to argue about was why I shouldn’t want to be a socialist.<br><br>To me, this was a microcosm of how Bernie’s messaging works. She didn’t really understand that the US wasn’t already socialist. The only thing she really understood was that Bernie’s vision of the future was “better” and “fairer” than the current system. That’s pretty much what she said: “it’s just better and [more] fair, that’s all.”<br><br>To me, it’s very interesting that the Democrats are so willing to consider Bernie, the least-electable candidate of all, for their nominee. I think it says a lot about their party.<br><br>Edit: thank you kind strangers for the gold and the silver. Much appreciated!