Book excerpt: Red-baiting: the act of attacking or persecuting as a Communist or as communistic ―Merriam-Webster Bernie Sanders has captured the imagination of millions of Americans who crave change to the economic and social system currently rigged for the billionaires. Predictably, the political establishment and media pundits are pulling out the stops to derail his campaign. To do so, they have reached for their trusty old weapon for dealing with such leaders for social change―red-baiting. Thus, as great leaders before him, such as Martin Luther King, Bernie is being painted as a Communist and an unwitting tool of Russia. Such claims are coming fast and furious as Bernie ascends in the primaries. The Plot to Russia-Bait Bernie Sanders challenges such McCarthyite claims and demonstrates that what our current rulers are afraid of is not Communism or Russian interference, but rather, true democratic rule and a more equal economic distribution of our nation’s vast wealth. What this book argues is that the US already has massive state interference in our economy―the type of interference they claim to fear in socialism―but that this interference is focused on giving generous subsidies to corporations and weapons manufacturers, while the poor and working class are left to fend for themselves. Bernie represents a threat to this corporate welfare system, and it is for this reason that the establishment, including the one that governs the Democratic Party, is hell-bent on stopping him. It is up to the mass of voters to see through this and to resist the one true interference in our electoral system―the interference by the billionaire class―and to support a more just system that works for all of us.