Bernie Sanders is an American politician who has served as a senator from Vermont since 2007. Having held various public offices since 1981, he is an independent and a self-described democratic socialist.

In 2016 Sanders campaigned for the Presidency of the United States in the Democratic primaries. His proposed policies emphasize reducing economic inequality and expanding social programs and workers' rights.

Since the election, Sanders has criticized the first presidency of Donald Trump. In February 2019, Sanders announced his candidacy in the Democratic Party primaries for the 2020 presidential election, later withdrawing in April 2020.

Sanders describes himself as a democratic socialist and an admirer of aspects of Nordic social democracy, while also supporting workplace democracy in the forms of union democracy and worker cooperatives. Sanders believes that incarcerated felons should be allowed to vote while they are serving their sentences.

In an address on his political philosophy given at Georgetown University in November 2015, Sanders identified his conception of "democratic socialism" with Franklin D. Roosevelt's proposal for a Second Bill of Rights, saying that democratic socialism means creating "an economy that works for all, not just the very wealthy", reforming the political system (which Sanders says is "grossly unfair" and, "in many respects, corrupt"), recognizing health care and education as rights, protecting the environment, and creating a "vibrant democracy based on the principle of one person, one vote". He explained that democratic socialism is not tied to a state socialist economic ideal, but, rather, describes a program of extensive social benefits, funded by broad-based taxes. Nevertheless, Sanders is sharply critical of contemporary neoliberal capitalism in the United States, which he describes as "uber-capitalism", blaming it for societal ills including declining life expectancy and rising diseases of despair.

Samuel Goldman, assistant professor of political science at George Washington University, suggests in The American Conservative that Sanders' platform is not socialist, and is better described as "welfarism", reminiscent of 1950s regulated capitalism. Goldman notes that Sanders does not advocate full public ownership of the means of production nor the abolition of profit, both of which Goldman considers to be defining characteristics of socialism.

Lane Kenworthy, professor of sociology at the University of California at San Diego, has argued that Sanders is a social democrat, and not a socialist, and that the two ideologies are fundamentally different from each other. Kenworthy points out that social democracy does not aim to abolish capitalism, and argues that Sanders' use of the term "socialism", when he actually advocates "social democracy", creates confusion and might have a negative impact on his presidential campaign. Mike Konczal, an economic policy expert at the Roosevelt Institute, also characterizes Sanders' positions as "social democracy", rather than "socialist", noting that social democracy means support for a mixed economy combining private enterprise with government spending, social insurance programs, Keynesian macro-economic policies, and governmental and union democracy — all of which are a part of Sanders' platform.

Andrei Markovits, professor of political science at the University of Michigan, defines democratic socialism as "an attempt to create a property-free, socialist society", and something that does not exist in Denmark or anywhere else in the world, and argues that Sanders' explanation of the term is inaccurate.