A specter is haunting the United States: the specter of democratic socialism.
And all the powers of old have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this specter — from
pundits to politicians, from Baby Boomers to Generation X, from retired San Antonio police chiefs to former White House advisers under Clinton and Obama.
“This election, we’re not talking about Red versus Blue,” scandal-tarred U.S. Senate candidate Ken Paxton explained at a rally held by President Donald Trump in San Antonio earlier this month. “We’re not talking about a moderate Democrat. We’re talking about the constitutional republic, freedom, the Bill of Rights; we are talking about capitalism. On the other side, we are talking about communism, socialism, the government controlling it … That’s why these elections are really mattering.”
Yet Paxton’s opponent, state Rep. James Talarico, has explicitly rejected the socialist label. So does state Rep. Gina Hinojosa, a self-described economic populist, who’s trying to cap the 12-year reign of Gov. Greg Abbott.
President Harry Truman accurately diagnosed this Republican tactic back in 1952.
“Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years,” Truman said during one of his iconic whistle-stop tours. ”Socialism is what they called public power. Socialism is what they called Social Security. Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations. Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.”
So, to campaign against “socialism” is really just a gussied-up attempt to roll back the progressive victories of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, according to Give ‘Em Hell Harry.
Yet red-baiters bang the horrors of 20th-century communism like a cheap drum.
“Look at all the countries that have implemented socialism and look at where they are,” D’rinda Randall, chairwoman of the Republican Party of Texas, said at Trump’s Alamo City rally. “It always leads to death and destruction and severe poverty.”
No one is advocating a one-party state except the Texas GOP. Let’s instead take a nation that ranks above ours on both the Democracy Index and the World Happiness Report: Norway. Almost two-thirds of that country’s wealth is in the hands of the government — a far higher share than in China.
So if we consider state ownership to count as socialism, when will Norway collapse into “death and destruction and severe poverty?” And when can we expect the imminent demise of the 25 million souls living behind the iron curtain called the Nordic model?
Or, if that’s not socialism but capitalism with a robust social safety net, then opponents of universal health care, tuition-free college, paid family leave, and higher union density — all of which most rich democracies enjoy — should stop calling these policies “socialist.”
Brandon Herrera, the 30-year-old social media influencer running to represent Texas’ 23rd District against former public school teacher Katy Padilla Stout, added his obsolete pennies.
“It’s so incredible to see so many young people stepping up and doing what we all need to be doing, my generation, taking some agency and some ownership in this country to stand up to socialism,” he said.
But the facts don’t bear out that assessment. According to a Gallup survey from August, 57% of adults ages 18 to 34 view socialism positively, with 55% of that same age cohort holding a negative image of capitalism. Upwards of $2 trillion in student loan debt takes a toll, no doubt, as does the fact that so many under 40 are unable to afford to own a home.
So it should surprise no one that the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) boast over 120,000 dues-paying members and that 70% of them are Millennials or younger.
By contrast, the average age of a member of Congress is over 60 and resting easy with heavily government-subsidized healthcare coverage.
“That flag does not stand for socialism,” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick declared at the San Antonio rally while pointing to the Stars and Stripes.
Odd then that the Pledge of Allegiance I repeated every school day was popularized by a Christian socialist by the name of Francis Bellamy. Look it up, Dan.
During his address to the San Antonio crowd, the 80-year-old Trump, spoke for nearly two hours without mentioning socialism once. Perhaps he was still in the afterglow of his joint press conference last month with Zohran Mamdani, the socialist mayor of New York City.
“Trump decries Democrats as ‘communists,’ even as he looks to impress China’s communist leader,” was the Associated Press’ headline for a story on the two presidents’ September meeting.
“The White House didn’t answer questions on whether it saw discrepancies between Trump denouncing Democrats as communists while expressing fondness for Chinese President Xi Jinping and having the government take large stakes in private companies,” the wire service reported.
To that point, the federal government currently owns stock in 30 corporations, including Intel and U.S. Steel. I guess no one ever died from what Karl Marx termed a “contradiction.”
Without evidence, Trump alleged that the brave protesters who repeatedly interrupted his tirade at Freeman Coliseum were paid “by enemies of our nation.” But speaking at Mount Rushmore the day before Independence Day, the president said, “In America, we do not need anyone’s permission to say what we think.”
Does that not go for socialists as well? Two GOP representatives from Georgia recently introduced a bill in the House to revoke the DSA’s party status, explicitly harkening back to the McCarthyism of the 1950s. That would effectively outlaw the DSA as a recognized political entity, First Amendment be damned.
Ironically, the extreme right never more closely resembles Joseph Stalin than when they seek to prohibit socialist idealism.
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