Is democratic socialism much different than what we have seen in this country's recent past, or does it entail far more radical change?

It is responsible for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid...programs the majority of Americans support, even if they believe they should and can be more efficiently run. Sanders would like to see Obamacare segue into a single payer system. His free college tuition program is not as crazy as it sounds when you consider that a college education is a necessity, much like the (free) high school education of the past.

What Bernie is proposing is a significant departure from the past:

1) Free college.

2) Universal single-payer healthcare.

3) Closing corporate tax loopholes. (This is always talked about but no one ever does anything about it.)

Taxing investment income like wage income would be a return to what we had in the distant past, before Reagan.

The USA has BEEN a socially-democratic republic since the Constitution was ratified, requiring tax-payers to fund an Army and a Post Office system.....so to answer your question, "no"....

Demsocs are a joke. Go Marxist-Leninism!

yes