At a moment in history when the leadership of the Republican party is undermining democracy, ignoring the climate crisis, trying to overturn Roe v Wa… - Bernie Sanders

I happen to believe also that what, to me, democratic socialism means is we deal with an issue we do not discuss enough... not in the media and not in Congress. You’ve got three people in America owning more wealth than the bottom half of this country. You’ve got a handful of billionaires controlling what goes on in Wall Street, the insurance companies and in the media. Maybe, just maybe, what we should be doing is creating an economy that works for all of us, not 1%. That’s my understanding of democratic socialism.

The unprecedented global challenges that the United States faces today—climate change, pandemics, nuclear proliferation, massive economic inequality, terrorism, corruption, authoritarianism—are shared global challenges. They cannot be solved by any one country acting alone. They require increased international cooperation—including with China, the most populous country on earth. It is distressing and dangerous, therefore, that a fast-growing consensus is emerging in Washington that views the U.S.-Chinese relationship as a zero-sum economic and military struggle. The prevalence of this view will create a political environment in which the cooperation that the world desperately needs will be increasingly difficult to achieve.

Day after day, here on the floor of the Senate and back in their states, many of my colleagues talk to the American people about how deeply concerned they are about the deficit and the national debt. They tell us that we just don't have enough money to expand Medicare... We just don't have enough money to do what every other major country on Earth does, and that is guarantee paid family and medical leave.
At a time when the scientists are telling us that we face an existential threat in terms of climate change, we are told that just don't have enough money to transform our energy system away from fossil fuel and create a planet that will be healthy and habitable for our kids and future generations. Just don't have enough money. Yet today, the U.S. Senate will begin consideration of an annual defense budget that costs $778 billion—$778 billion for one year... And by the way, all of this money is going to an agency, the Department of Defense, that continues to have massive cost overruns, year after year, wasting enormous amounts of money... Concerns about the deficit seem to melt away under the influence of the military-industrial complex.