There are no Socialist governments anywhere in the world. The word socialism has been blanched of meaning, used by everyone from Russian Communists and Cuban revolutionaries on the left, and on the right German National Socialists (Nazis) come to mind. It is used because it resonates among European voters and it has a purpose. Democratic Socialism is capitalism with the sharp edges shorn off, a governing philosophy that gives working people benefits in health care, housing and transportation, among others. European voters cannot abide the grotesque inequities in income distribution Americans believe is normal. Our health care system, as an example, is without a doubt the most expensive in the world and yet it provides only a fraction of the coverage every citizen in Western Europe receives, just by being born French, German or British. And they get more years of life with that superior health care.
The capitalist enterprise is protected from itself. It is left to bully everyone else with its wealth and privilege it devolves into autocracy and monopoly.
The word fails to resonate in the American context because for more than a century it has been excoriated and demeaned by the commercial press. Capitalism is not merely an ideology it is a radial monopoly, one that does not permit alternatives to be considered or discussed.
America is not just the land of capitalist triumph but the nation with the greatest income inequality, least public support for the indigent. Attempts to hold down the cost of living are dismissed as illegitimate, outside the boundaries of politics.
Every highly regarded American political scientists has to opine on why there was never socialism in the U.S. There is a consensus, more or less, that the Labor Movement’s success at challenging capitalist inequities in the early 20th century took the natural constituency away from a working person’s political party. Eugene Debs got as close as anyone to an alternative to the Democrats, Republicans the Bull Mooses but his 1M votes was the high water mark for an anti-capitalist movement.
Today Democratic Socialism is simply not allowed. Americans agree with this movement’s ideals on abortion, civil rights, guns, environmental protection, to name but four. These are not marginal positions but majoritarian ones by any reputable public poll.
The contemporary term for the right’s reaction to the election of Zohran Momandi as the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York is “lost their shit.” It’s totally gone and they are now shitless. With the cooperation of the commercial media (owned and controlled by a diminishing number of massive corporation) the right has moved the entire political spectrum in their direction. Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford could not have won Republican primaries today as the successful Republicans mimic Trump’s ignorance and racism. Trump is very much the voice of the Republican Party. He has taken the party so far to the right its no one in its pantheon of heroes from yesteryear would have a chance in today’s Republican Party.
The far right echo machine will, with the willing connivance of the commercial media, sling mud at Mondami until he is unrecognizable to his supporters, or even his friends and family. See Hilary Clinton, who was smeared for decades by the far right until her honorable public service (Senator, Secretary of State) devolved into senseless charges her e-mails held incendiary information. This may not be the defense she’d prefer, but she was a woman of a certain age trying to make sense of all the texts and emails coming at her, just like the rest of us. She wanted them all accessible on one device, rather than carrying several phones with her. In some weird, twisted way that was turned into a scandal so that delusional Republicans would have something to believe. For them just “you are a feminist and a Democrat and we hate you” would have been enough to arouse their enmity but the goal was not merely to win but to demolish her.
The opposite of Democratic Socialism is not Conservative Capitalism it is Republican Fascism. If the left and the right broadly defined were to hold nationwide elections in which all Americans voted the Republican party as we know it would go extinct. Instead, everyone from Greg Abbott to Peter Thiel are conniving ways that white Republican men can continue to hold power even as their legitimacy goes down the drain. Think Black Americans being held in bondage by their far less numerous white masters, in danger of an uprising at any time, held down by force, a nearly comically stupid ideology and lots of hot air about honor. It was and it is unsustainable.
The neo-fascists, fascist sympathizers, proto-fascists and regular old garden variety fascists will tell you that there is just nothing that can be done. The dangerous sect called “moderate Republicans” do not moderate them, they facilitate the control the far right has over the public agenda. It would be difficult to argue that there are moderates and extremists in the Republican Party. They have all merged right.
The various Republican clans tell us we have to live with out-of-control, uniquely American gun violence, that we must oppose environmental protections that have gone “too far,” remove the rights of American women to control their own bodies, the God-given rights of citizens to control public lands and all our other popular policy proposals. Socialism smoshalism. When someone asks what you stand for just say democracy. It has been a more than good enough answer since before the word socialism was ever invented.
