Sanders' victory: How Bernie ended the Cold War in 2016 … Sanders' dark horse candidacy stripped socialism of its fringe labels and, culturally speaking, ended the Cold War – Salon

Now that Bernie Sanders is becoming a Hillary backer, the mainstream media is celebrating him.

This article from Salon actually gives Sanders credit for ending a certain kind of Cold War.

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I can remember the exact moment when it occurred to me that the Cold War was finally over.  It was about three months ago, at an event for prospective university students and their parents; at the end, a smart, energetic college senior took questions from the audience.

When asked to describe the political climate on campus, she said it was broad and inclusive, featuring conservatives, Trump supporters, liberals, progressives, and, as she put it, "democratic socialists like me."

She wasn't trying to be provocative.  No one in the audience batted an eye.  She referred to socialism in a purely neutral, descriptive way, and everyone moved on.  The lingering effects of Cold War ideology had finally faded away.

The article goes on to explain in more detail exactly what Cold War Sanders ended.

The author, John Mackey – associate chair of the Social Sciences Division in the College of General Studies at Boston University – believes the Cold War made a discussion of democratic socialism impossible.

It was falsely equated with communism, he writes, and thus, as well, with the Gulag.

But now self-identified socialist Sanders has resuscitated the socialist dialogue by winning 23 major-party primaries or caucuses.

Not only did he attract the votes of millions of young people in the US, he also had a significant impact on the Democratic platform.

The platform hammered out over the weekend in Orlando, Florida, is, as he has said, the most progressive of any major party ever, and by a lot. His relentless focus on the issues has meant that the Democratic Party, anyway, has begun to transform itself.

Over at Politico, Michael Kruse celebrates Sanders.

Sanders' entire campaign, in fact, has been an extended lecture on how a campaign should in fact be about transformation: how you need to get money and corporate power out of politics to make it happen, how you need to make sure everyone can go to college and no one spends their life working for so little money they can't engage as a citizen.

We who stood behind Bernie know how to be steadfast and unruffled, even when the powers that be are begging us to stop. One of the reasons we know is because Sanders has shown us.

Neither article provides us any downside to Sanders' vision. In fact, Mackey eagerly awaits a transformation of US society that will bring the country closer Scandavian countries like Denmark – often noted as one of the happiest countries in the world.

The Internet tells us another story, though. Denmark doesn't seem so happy when you read about it.

For one thing a sizable minority of Danes take anti-depression drugs like Prozac.

And the drinking culture is so notable that almost any portrait of the country mentions that from Friday until Monday alcohol is consumed in excess – and almost anyone you meet seems inebriated.