Let’s start with the premise that Bernie wins the nomination, which is a very real possibility as of this week. In my view he needs to start now to define himself for the general election, instead of helping the Republicans to define him as being a “communist slash socialist” which Trump has already done.

In 1987 Bernie said:

Democracy means public ownership of the major means of production, it means decentralization, it means involving people in their work. Rather than having bosses and workers it means having democratic control over the factories and shops to as great a degree as you can.

Two months ago he reversed course:

I don’t believe government should take over the grocery store down the street or own the means of production. But I do believe that the middle class and the working families who produce the wealth of America deserve a decent standard of living and that their incomes should go up, not down. I do believe in private companies that thrive and invest and grow in America, companies that create jobs here, rather than companies that are shutting down in America and increasing their profits by exploiting low-wage labor abroad.

However, it would be a lot more convincing if he stopped calling himself a socialist which still means:

a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.

It would also be a lot more convincing if he made a public statement that he was wrong before and changed his mind about control of the means of production instead of glossing over things in order to seem consistent and more radical than he is. Does he believe large corporations should still be controlled by their executives or does he believe they should be controlled by the workers instead? There is still too much wiggle room in his public statements and Republicans are going to jump on it. Unfortunately, his attempts to clarify things are cancelled out by the language he uses and his failure to say that he was wrong before but that he is right now, which is what Clinton did for the Iraq War.