You may have noticed my lengthy silence. I hope it didn’t go unnoticed. 

I stepped back several weeks ago because I felt that writing about anything other than the elephant in the room — MAGA’s unrelenting attacks on any semblance of government for the common good — would have come off as trivial. Furthermore, continuing my rebuke of Trump and his lieutenants would have been redundant, although wholly deserved. His administration has quickened the pace of its cruelty, venality and authoritarianism. I knew most (all?) of my readers share my outrage anyway, so I chose to stew silently along with my wife Lucy, who made sure my disgust remained sufficiently stoked.  

 

I’ve been aroused by a wisp of fresh air that blew by last month, as have others on the left. Zohran Mamdani, a Democrat and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, won New York’s mayoral election. Even though Mamdani’s vision for New York is at odds with the conservatism that dominates politics elsewhere, his victory afforded me and like-minded liberals a moment of exhilaration. It wasn’t the free bus rides or city-run bodegas promised by Mamdani that excited us. It was the sense that someone —  a candidate running in our largest city no less — successfully espoused a governmental philosophy that was the opposite of MAGA/Republican/Trumpian doctrine. The moment would have been perfect but for the Democratic establishment’s squeamishness over Mamdani’s affiliation with the Democratic Socialists of America. While he was wooing New Yorkers with his freshness and brashness, he had frightened the Democratic establishment. Eventually, when Mamdani’s victory appeared certain, establishment Democrats begrudgingly accepted him, but the same way an older sibling might tolerate a wayward younger one. Their discomfort with many of Mamdani’s ideas was obvious.

 

The word socialist strikes fear in the hearts of U.S. politicians, including establishment Democrats, almost as much as the word Nazi. Only a very few enlightened souls dare claim the mantle of socialist. Chief among these is Bernie Sanders, a man I have admired without reservation for many years. He also is a Democratic Socialist. More specifically, he is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America — not a political party per se but an activist political organization with chapters in all 50 states. 

 

Over the past couple of decades, I have had the same conversation over and over with good people who call themselves liberal. It goes like this:

 

• Liberal friend of Buck: I like a lot of the things Bernie says but he is too far left to be electable. He is a fringe candidate. 
• Buck: But I agree with everything he says just as I do AOC. 
• LF of B: You’ll never beat the Republicans by championing far left candidates. Be realistic.

 

I usually didn’t argue the point while I pined away for a third party that I could enthusiastically support. No such party currently nominates candidates for national elections. However, in local and state races there is a party I can get behind with no hesitation. In fact, I already have. Yes, I recently became a dues-paying member of the Democratic Socialists of America. Joining the DSA may strike some as an impulsive leap by  a 75-year-old, privileged white son of the South who acknowledges some eccentricities. But no; it was a rational and necessary choice that shouldn’t raise eyebrows.  Indeed, I suspect that if the word “Socialist” were dropped from the party’s name, my decision wouldn’t elicit any surprise.

 

So why does the American electorate loathe the words Socialist and socialism? After all, it describes the most popular governmental programs — Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid? The simple answer is twofold: Propaganda and ignorance. 

 

Propaganda

For as long as we’ve been a nation, our country has equated capitalism and freedom. The language of our government has perpetuated the notion that the two are inextricably linked and work in harmony to promote the common good. Even during the Great Depression, the openly socialist policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal were roundly denounced by the right as being socialistic. Growing up in S.C., I distinctly remember hearing that the programs set up under the New Deal were an overreach by that liberal bogeyman FDR. He was spoken of in the same way one spoke of the evil carpetbaggers and scalawags of the  Reconstruction era. 

 

Later, during the Cold War, no distinction was made between socialism and state communism as practiced by the then-Soviet Union, Cuba and North Korea. This blurring made things easy for the laissez faire capitalists. They could ignore our own socialism (Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, etc.) while condemning socialism elsewhere whenever they could use that label. Nevermind that our allies in Europe adopted social policies (minimum incomes, universal healthcare, universal free education, etc.) while remaining true to democratic ideals and maintaining high standards of living. By the end of the Cold War, the myth that socialism and state communism were identical had been sold to a gullible electorate, thanks to U.S. government propaganda.

 

Ignorance

It takes minds devoid of nuance to equate, for example, Sweden and North Korea. Sweden is demonstrably socialist while it still welcomes free enterprise. North Korea is a closed society that is a communist dictatorship. Yet, if you ask the average American voter if he/she would like to see more socialist policies like Sweden’s here in the U.S., they’d probably answer no in an instant because socialism is bad! Yet if they spent a few months as Swedish citizens, they might very well change their tune. Not having to worry about the cost of healthcare or the cost of a college education or the cost of day care for your toddlers might make life seem bearable even in a socialist state. And the lifestyle aside from those benefits might seem pretty wonderful. Just supposing.

 

Americans’ isolation from other western democracies with broader social welfare programs makes it harder for them to make nuanced judgments about how socialism at its best really works. So we react as we’ve been conditioned to — with fear and loathing for any program bearing even a whiff of socialism, however much it might benefit average citizens. A perfect example: Food stamps. Many Republicans oppose food stamps, believing that they allow poor people to get away with not working. But if any of them tried to live on an income low enough to qualify for food stamps, I wager that they’d see things differently. Their mythic up-by-the-bootstraps mentality and rugged individualism doesn’t allow them to  consider the plight of our least fortunate.

 

Americans need to be educated and de-propagandized about socialism. They need to read about socialist movements like the one that brought Socialists to power in the United Kingdom during World War II.  I just read a biography of Clement Atlee, Britain’s prime minister from 1945 to 1951. The book traces the evolution of Britain’s Socialist Party to today’s Labour Party. Reading that history, one cannot help but see the multi-faceted nature of socialism as it developed in Britain. It was rooted in a dedication to nurturing the working class, as opposed to the investor class. And what’s wrong with that? Anyone who knows this history would be hard pressed to be a knee-jerk anti-socialist.

 

It’s become a rule that candidates for political office in the U.S. say over and over that they are pro-business and pro-capitalism. The DSA is pro-worker, pro-environment, and pro-justice for all. Its mission is not to bolster capitalism or any particular business. Our existing system of government, along with both political parties, already do that to the detriment of our working class. 

 

So, take a side. Who needs your help? Is it the working women and men of this country or the investor class whose interest lies in profit alone? Don’t let the word socialist scare you away. Claim it proudly. 

 

Here’s the link to the DSA.

https://www.dsausa.org/

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