A dozen years ago, John Edwards, then still the Democratic Party’s fair-haired boy, had a signature catchphrase on the stump to describe the Bush administration’s economic policy. He called it “the most radical and dangerous economic theory to hit our shores since socialism.” That was the nastiest comparison Edwards could come up with — to an extreme and long-dead ideology. The reference worked only because Edwards’s target audience of Democratic-primary voters could all agree socialism was as unworkable and monstrously evil as, well, the Bush economic program.
In a few days, when the three remaining Democratic candidates for president gather in South Carolina for a forum hosted by Rachel Maddow, none will be using “socialist” as a slur. One of them, of course, adopts it as a proud identifier. Bernie Sanders has not turned the Democratic Party socialist — nor even, technically speaking, joined it, choosing to remain nominally independent. But Sanders’s campaign has made socialism relevant to the national political debate for the first time since Eugene V. Debs garnered 6 percent of the vote in 1912. It is looking increasingly likely that the 2016 election will mark a historical turning point in the relationship of socialism to mainstream politics in the United States.
In most democracies, socialism does not connote something horrifying or alien. The United States is unusual among democracies in that it lacks a true mainstream political party with roots in the labor movement. American liberalism developed in the 20th century mostly out of policies implemented by the Democratic Party, which had its strongest base in the South, a deeply segregated, heavily agricultural region with a traditional suspicion of centralized power. The Democrats have never been a labor party; unions have always had to jostle with business for influence. The Cold War further served to identify socialism with communism. But this deep and very American hostility may be breaking down. Recent polls have shown that voters in their 20s think just as highly of socialism as they do of capitalism.
That socialism is no longer a dirty word has freaked out conservatives. As Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute worried in 2010, “The young sympathizers of socialism today may be the grown-up defenders of socialism tomorrow.” Rand Paul, who prides himself on his hipness, has warned young people to stay away. “I’ve been trying to point out — because I’m on a lot of college campuses, we have a big following in college campuses — that there’s nothing sexy and there’s nothing cool about socialism,” he told Glenn Beck. Oh, socialism might sound cool, and you might impress kids at a party, but eventually you will find yourself facedown in a ditch, or perhaps digging one in a Siberian labor camp. (I’m not kidding. “Only the state tells you what you can do; it’s the most anti-choice economic system,” Paul said. “If you don’t listen, they fine you. If you don’t pay the fine, they imprison you. If you will not listen, ultimately, what has happened in history, and people get mad when I say this, but they exterminate you. That’s what happened under Stalin.”)
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/10/bernie-sanders-return-of-socialism.html
Just goes to show how far the democratic party has veered leftward since the likes of John Edwards.
In a few days, when the three remaining Democratic candidates for president gather in South Carolina for a forum hosted by Rachel Maddow, none will be using “socialist” as a slur. One of them, of course, adopts it as a proud identifier. Bernie Sanders has not turned the Democratic Party socialist — nor even, technically speaking, joined it, choosing to remain nominally independent. But Sanders’s campaign has made socialism relevant to the national political debate for the first time since Eugene V. Debs garnered 6 percent of the vote in 1912. It is looking increasingly likely that the 2016 election will mark a historical turning point in the relationship of socialism to mainstream politics in the United States.
In most democracies, socialism does not connote something horrifying or alien. The United States is unusual among democracies in that it lacks a true mainstream political party with roots in the labor movement. American liberalism developed in the 20th century mostly out of policies implemented by the Democratic Party, which had its strongest base in the South, a deeply segregated, heavily agricultural region with a traditional suspicion of centralized power. The Democrats have never been a labor party; unions have always had to jostle with business for influence. The Cold War further served to identify socialism with communism. But this deep and very American hostility may be breaking down. Recent polls have shown that voters in their 20s think just as highly of socialism as they do of capitalism.
That socialism is no longer a dirty word has freaked out conservatives. As Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute worried in 2010, “The young sympathizers of socialism today may be the grown-up defenders of socialism tomorrow.” Rand Paul, who prides himself on his hipness, has warned young people to stay away. “I’ve been trying to point out — because I’m on a lot of college campuses, we have a big following in college campuses — that there’s nothing sexy and there’s nothing cool about socialism,” he told Glenn Beck. Oh, socialism might sound cool, and you might impress kids at a party, but eventually you will find yourself facedown in a ditch, or perhaps digging one in a Siberian labor camp. (I’m not kidding. “Only the state tells you what you can do; it’s the most anti-choice economic system,” Paul said. “If you don’t listen, they fine you. If you don’t pay the fine, they imprison you. If you will not listen, ultimately, what has happened in history, and people get mad when I say this, but they exterminate you. That’s what happened under Stalin.”)
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/10/bernie-sanders-return-of-socialism.html
Just goes to show how far the democratic party has veered leftward since the likes of John Edwards.
