Let it be said at once: the treatment received by Bernie Sanders in the leading media in the United States and in Europe is unjust and dangerous. Everywhere on the main networks and the large daily papers we read that Sanders is an “extremist” and that only a “centrist” candidate like Biden could triumph over Trump. This biased and somewhat unscrupulous treatment is particularly regrettable when a closer examination of the facts actually suggests that only a full-scale reorientation of the type proposed by Sanders would eventually rid American democracy of the inegalitarian practices which undermine it and deal with the electoral disaffection of the working classes.

Let’s begin with the program. To say emphatically, as Sanders does, that a public, universal health insurance would enable the American population to be cared for more efficiently and more cheaply than the present private and extremely unequal system is not an “extremist” statement. It is on the contrary a declaration, perfectly well-documented by many research studies and international comparisons. In these difficult times when everyone deplores the rise of “fake news,” it is right and proper for some candidates to rely on established facts and not resort to obscure language and complex tactics.