Progressive activist Maurice Weeks said on Monday that President Trump wants to see growing divisions in the Democratic Party over the issue of socialism.
“I think it’s Donald Trump’s dream for us to get into an argument about what socialism is, and what socialism isn’t,” Weeks, the co-executive director of the Action Center on Race and the Economy, told Hill.TV’s Buck Sexton and Jamal Simmons on “Rising.”
“I think that when you see policies like the Green New Deal and Medicare for All, these are policies that are for all people,” he continued.
“You can call those socialist policies if you want to. I don’t think any of the candidates are running as explicit socialist,” he said before adding that even Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who identifies as a democratic socialist, is “not saying the government should control all means of production or anything like that.”
“These aren’t socialist things. This is exactly the kind of debate that Donald Trump wants Democratic politicians to get into,” he said.
Republicans, including Trump, have labeled various Democrats and Democratic policies as “socialist” in an attempt to paint them as extreme.
Democratic presidential hopeful and former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper faced boos from Democratic Party activists at the California Democratic Party convention on Saturday after he warned about the risks of embracing socialism ahead of 2020.
— Julia Manchester
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