With the next presidential election rapidly approaching, many issues and viewpoints have been thrust into the political battlefield. Each candidate informs voters on his or her solutions, usually centered around republican and democratic views. When a candidate breaks the norm and distances himself or herself the farthest away from the two main parties, it grabs my attention. Bernie Sanders’ socialist ideas make him very unique, but also give him a negative connotation with some American voters. Being as intrigued as I was, I immediately had questions: Why do so many people oppose socialism? Would having a democratic socialist in office be as bad as the negative responses that the idea gets? Could it benefit the United States? Would the United States transfer completely to democratic socialism? What are the pros and cons to democratic socialism? I had asked all these questions before realizing, I did not know what democratic socialism was. I knew what socialism was, but what makes it democratic? I needed to be more informed before answering.
Consumed by my curiosity, I took to the internet. I watched hours of Bernie Sanders interviews about democratic socialism. I saw people agree and disagree with it. I read articles on democratic socialism and how it has worked in other
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In addition to my previous questions, I now wondered whether it made me a bad person to disagree with this idea. Did it make me greedy and unwilling to help others? Was I wrong to disagree with it? Was I now for democratic socialism? Would it unite our society in a new, unique way? Unfortunately, I could not use the internet or other sources to answer these questions. I could only think about them, talk about them, read what other people think about them, and then draw my own conclusions. I thought about everything I had researched and all the questions I could