Many people, including many conservatives, believe Bernie is authentic. A man of conviction. That he's always been sincere in his convictions about socialism. Sure, one may vehemently disagree with comrade Bernie, but at least he's the real thing. Or so it's often claimed.
1. I'll certainly grant comrade Bernie is more forthright and honest than Obama or Hillary. However, that's a pretty low bar! The latter two are snakes in the grass; it's always a challenge to sink lower than a snake.
2. At the same time, there's no virtue in being courageous and true to oneself if one is also a fool. One can be courageous and true to oneself, but rush headlong into disaster. Consider all the Muslim suicide bombers who believe they'll obtain 72 virgins if they die killing infidels in the name of Allah. They're true believers in Islam, and it takes some courage to kill oneself with a suicide vest, but that doesn't mean they weren't idiotic or stupid. As the saying goes: fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
3. If someone wants to be a fool, then I guess "whatever" for them. The real tragedy is when their foolishness harms or kills others. That, again, can be seen in Muslim suicide bombers who murder others. However it can just as well be seen in comrade Bernie. If his socialist vision was ever fully implemented, there's good reason to believe it would severely harm our nation if not worse.
4. All that said, I'm skeptical about Bernie truly having the courage of his convictions these days. If comrade Bernie is truly a man of his convictions, then why doesn't he live like it anymore?
Let me take a step back. I think there are at least two ways to test a person's convictions. Either make it cost him significantly to stick to his beliefs or bait and entice him away from his beliefs. See if he will withstand sufferings or see if he'll be drawn out by temptations.
For example, as Christians know, that can be seen in our faith either when we suffer for being Christian (e.g. friends and family turn against us, we lose our livelihoods) or when we're tempted away from Christianity (e.g. wealth, sex). Satan is both dragon and serpent, persecutor and seductress, murderer and liar, dark angel and angel masquerading in light.
Along similar lines, I think comrade Bernie may have been true to his socialism in his marginalized years. True to his socialism when he had little. When he was a no-name senator on the sidelines. When he was no-one and had nothing. So I'd agree it does say something that comrade Bernie could cling onto his socialism in these lean years. His socialist faith was not a fairweather faith.
However, where hardship and adversity didn't work, it seems to me charms and beguilements did. That is, it seems to me comrade Bernie used to be a man of his convictions, back when he was relegated to obscurity and irrelevance in American politics, but now that he's become the popular leader of an ever-growing movement that has helped line his pockets, he's caved to the bourgeoisie life. For example, Victor Davis Hanson recently noted:
Oddly, Sanders’s rivals on the debate stage never really hit the presumptive leader where he is most vulnerable: his reprehensible past empathy for the genocidal Soviet Union, and his praise of communist dictatorships such as those in Nicaragua and Cuba. Then there remains the embarrassing paradox of a die-hard socialist redistributionist eager to cash in on his political career—to the extent of setting up his wife as an in-house, well-paid consultant (with her past failed career as wheeler-dealer small college president who bankrupted her institution and for a while won the attention of the FBI), while becoming a millionaire with three homes. Mention that, as Bloomberg did in the recent debate, and Bernie becomes livid, in a fashion that appears dangerous for a septuagenarian who recently survived a heart attack.
In short, I think comrade Bernie's life mirrors what happens to socialists and communists once they've achieved power. They willingly suffer through long marches and bloody revolutions, but once they're in charge they begin to bask in their newfound position and power.
Look at the lives of Stalin, Mao, Castro. Consider today's communist leaders like Xi Jinping (China) and Kim Jong-un (North Korea). All of their lives have been marked by far more affluence and even opulence than what their compatriots endure day by day.
Of course, that's not to say socialist and communist leaders will ever stop claiming to be bona fide socialists and communists. Quite the contrary. They'll instead willingly break the backs of their supposed working-class comrades for their own ends or pleasures. They're like the pigs in George Orwell's Animal Farm who used and abused the horse Boxer then sold him off to a glue factory once his strength was spent. They'll engage in doublespeak to justify themselves: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
