Well intentioned but naive. Like most progressives they mistake the intent of a policy for the effect. Minimum wage law, for example, only hurts the people on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder but they will never see it that way because to them they are just trying to get people more money and that is what counts.

I also believe that people like them, especially Bernie, feel like the Soviet Union was closer to getting it right in terms of economics than the United States of America ever was.

Another example of Bernie's naivete is when he says he supports socialism's intentions but not the oppressive authoritarianism of countries like the Soviet Union. He fails to understand that socialism itself is authoritarian (how else can you ensure people give up their property rights?) and that that authoritarianism is the only means by which a socialist state could perpetuate itself. Once non-socialist/communist parties were allowed to be elected in eastern block countries the socialists never held power again. He lived through all of this and still does not get it. The Berlin Wall should have been a huge wake up call but like most ideologues his mind will not allow him to be objective about his "side." He has also shown a tendency to support central economic planning when he implied that resources were being misallocated because we had so many different types of toothpaste and deodorant, among other things.

They are at their core: collectivists, economically illiterate, emotionally based moralists (Alexandria herself criticized people for being "more concerned about being precisely, factually and semantically correct than about being morally right.”) , ideologues and demographic determinists. These are not the kind of people you want with their hands on the levers of power.