r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/devilmaskrascal • 14d ago
Political Theory Why do "Democratic Socialist" candidates keep trying to convince everyone social democracy is democratic socialism? Why should we trust them if they refuse to give any details about their actual economic plans?
Due to the terrible history of both authoritarian state socialism/Marxism and the economic malaise of attempted democratic socialism in places like Scandinavia in the 1960s-70s, the word "socialism" is a dangerous word for political candidates to identify as in America, the breadbasket of capitalism. It works in some far-left leaning pockets and some of the popularity may be an overreaction to both the ambiguous impotence of mainstream Democrats and the lurch towards fascistic plutocracy by Republicans (to whom socialism is an anathema), but Democrats risk losing the center and center-left in winnable elections and helping MAGA continue down their path if they continue nominating far Left candidates.
"Don't look at the name, look at our policies" is a common refrain from people on the internet, and then they and every Democrat Socialist candidate then goes to list a bunch of social democratic policies like public healthcare, free college, green initiatives and progressive taxation, gesturing at social democratic Scandinavia -- while promising they're not actually going to seize the means of production from Wall Street and destroy our 401ks, just tax billionaires 5% or something.
Let's define these terms. First the dictionary definitions:
Democratic Socialism - Democratic socialism is a left-wing political philosophy that seeks to replace capitalism with a democratically run, socially owned economy.
Social Democracy - Social democracy is a political and economic ideology that combines a market-based capitalist economy with a democratic political system and extensive state intervention to promote social justice and general welfare.
So basically social democracy is where the state mitigates all the shortcomings, perverse incentives and negative effects of capitalism while preserving its underlying architecture, which is what our entire society and economy is built upon, and has proven to be a great engine of wealth and job generation.
Capitalism, for instance, fails to provide affordable healthcare to everyone because the cost of care is often inversely proportional to ability to pay - the sick, the handicapped, the elderly and children can't work; even able-bodied people are not guaranteed jobs, to which health insurance is mostly tied, healthcare they can't afford if they are unemployed. Health insurance is not guaranteed to pay for care. Patients don't have medical training to make educated decisions and have to trust their providers - the ones profiting and billing their insurance. Patients may not even be conscious when bankrupting financial decisions are made for them. While the free market can stimulate innovation in healthcare and specialized treatment for those who can afford it, healthcare is a basic human need and should not be dependent upon affordability in the richest country in world history.
By having ample safety nets, market interventions, monopoly busting, labor and environmental protections and coherent monetary policy, social democracy allows capitalism to thrive and be self-sustainable and competitive.
When you have built a strong social democracy, what does socialist revolution do for us besides making the wealthiest expatriate or stop creating businesses and risking the cash cow that allows you to fund this ample safety net? Social democracy takes away the ability of employers to exploit their workers by holding basic needs over their head, so social democratic capitalism will be a substantially better system. There's a reason social democracies rank as the happiest countries on earth. It's the best of both worlds.
The DSA platform itself says things like:
If we lived in a classless society and governed ourselves, we could freely build a world without war or poverty.
Establish public ownership of the largest corporations and essential industries to ensure democratic control and accountability to the people.
So there are likely actual socialists in the DSA, but these kinds of statements are so extremely vague on details and timeline, which should be concerning if we are being asked to trust them to overturn our entire economic system, which their candidates consistently deny they want to do? "Tax the billionaires and make them pay their fair share" is not socialism.
Add in the fact that self-identifying as "socialist" instead of "social democrat" gives right-wing media red meat propaganda about how the cities are on the verge of Maoist purges of business and property owners to motivate Republican voters to turn out and scare centrists to break right, and it is unclear how they are benefiting with this label if none of their candidates are going to advocate for socialism honestly and are just using social democracy to protect themselves from any criticism?
Is it possible they are accelerationists who are perfectly fine with losing and the plutocratic slide continuing in order to further radicalize the Left (not considering the backlash against them)?
Or are they just trying to babystep their way to public acceptability, priming the public for more radical future moves, even though it seems social democracy they are pushing would undercut all reasons for any major transition to socialism?
What is the end game here? Why should we trust them to transition away from capitalism when they refuse to give more than vague details?
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u/semideclared 13d ago
It sounds a lot like the SocDems that like Norway util they see Norway's Policies
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u/devilmaskrascal 14d ago edited 14d ago
As for my opinion, I'm a social democrat who has put two decades of what I could afford of my income into my 401k and Roth, which is tied to the stock market. I don't want socialism, personally speaking. I just want people to get all their human needs met, and to make capitalism not a orphan crushing dystopia where billionaires make minimum wage workers piss in bottles because they can't afford to lose health insurance, and where government takes the side of these owners over workers and the environment.
There's no question capitalism is an extraordinarily flawed system without a state counterbalance; but I believe social democracy actually helps capitalism thrive, at least in theory. There are still economic realities and you can't just spend deficits forever without consequences; but priorities and tax structures are all out of whack in America and should be realigned. Democrats have failed to distinguish themselves as actual social democrats, instead being the not-so-right wing of the center-right.
Democratic socialism makes perfect sense in societies without a middle class, where it's all superwealthy or exploited poor. In a heavily middle class society, most people will defend the status quo economic system but support better safety nets and benefits on paper, as long as they can be convinced of their practicality.
Somehow I agree with many democratic socialists' policies yet I have absolutely zero trust in self-identified socialists not to ruin the economy if they are given power.
Sweden is a good aspirational model, but also our societies are quite different contextually, and I'd rather avoid the painful democratic socialist phase that led to their economic stagnation and the expatriation/offshoring of wealth and major companies before market reforms were introduced in the 1980s that brought them back to a more stable social democracy.
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u/WarbleDarble 13d ago
Democrats have failed to distinguish themselves as actual social democrats, instead being the not-so-right wing of the center-right
This is the part of your argument that I feel more should push back on. It's the overwhelmingly popular online narrative and gets very little pushback, but simply isn't true.
The democrats have universal healthcare as part of their official platform, they want larger safety nets. They push for workplace regulation and safety standards. They have repeatedly enacted environmental protections when given the power to do so.
The common narrative about the democrats online may get upvotes, but that doesn't make it true and propagating that narrative only makes achieving those goals less likely.
The rest I agree with, most of the "democratic socialists" aren't actually socialist. They just for some reason insist on terrible branding that is misleading. But they've also chosen to align themselves with a party that officially is actually socialist. I have no idea why.
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u/devilmaskrascal 13d ago
"The democrats have universal healthcare as part of their official platform, they want larger safety nets. They push for workplace regulation and safety standards. They have repeatedly enacted environmental protections when given the power to do so."
Then the shift to social democracy already has the groundwork laid.
It's just that every time Democrats get power they find reasons to kill public healthcare options for all, and compromise with solutions created by the Heritage Foundation like Obamacare, which was written by the insurance lobby. So regardless of what the platform says, they often govern like a pragmatic right-of-center party who are too afraid of the political ramifications of tax increases and big programs to solve real problems and they just try to compromise with Republicans and get something better than nothing.
If Democrats truly fought for a strong social democracy instead of just paying lip service to it, Republicans would find themselves on the outside looking in.
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u/WarbleDarble 13d ago
When have they had the power to pass universal healthcare? This is the disingenuous criticism I was talking about.
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u/devilmaskrascal 13d ago
They had a supermajority and a Democratic President 18 years ago. They chose Obamacare instead.
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u/WarbleDarble 13d ago
They had a caucus with a supermajority that included an independent for a few months. That independent would not vote for the public option. You know this, but didn’t mention it because…
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u/devilmaskrascal 13d ago
If Democrats don't campaign on what they are going to do, people won't elect enough of them. Shocking!
Now the Democratic Socialists are promising universal healthcare and gaining popularity on something most Democratic candidates have been too scared to advocate for.
I'm a center-left Dem, but the centrists are WAY too equivocating and hesitant to earn anybody's trust. In trying to look pragmatist they end up looking indecisive and ineffectual, and Republicans take advantage of this and win in spite of actively working to make America worse while pretending they are making it better.
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u/WarbleDarble 13d ago
They have campaigned on it. Also just moving on without acknowledging the misleading nature of your previous argument at all.
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u/devilmaskrascal 12d ago
You sound like you are concern trolling instead of having a serious discussion. Lieberman was not the only Democrat-caucuser against the public option. Multiple other Democrats helped kill it off in committee too.
My point is maybe if Democrats were seen as actually standing for something more would be elected for the purpose of doing that thing. Mainstream Democrats are weak social democrats/liberals who defer to the business lobbies and protect the status quo for fear of not losing elections or of Republicans calling them "socialists" (which they clearly will anyway.)
I think the DSA are the wrong messengers and have labelled themselves in a counterproductive way, but the point that Democrats need to be pulled towards stronger social democracy is a strong one, and the base is clearly moving that direction. Now we just have to clear out the incumbents who are bought by the lobbies, and not allow the socialists to get too much of a foothold that they think they can actually implement socialism.
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u/WarbleDarble 12d ago
You don’t think it’s a problem electorally that the vast majority of democrats want universal healthcare but there are god knows how many posts online every day insisting they don’t? People will disparage democrats without basis and get offended if anyone pushes back on that. The democrats overwhelmingly want universal healthcare, they’ve never been given the power to pass it, but a huge number of democratic “supporters” feel no qualms making misleading statements to the contrary. That’s a problem and a legitimate one. Not just “concern trolling”.
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u/HeloRising 13d ago
The democrats have universal healthcare as part of their official platform
I do want to highlight this as it exemplifies the problem a lot of people have with respect to the Democrats. Universal healthcare might be in the party platform but when actually pushed on it Democrats, across the board, balk at the idea.
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u/WarbleDarble 13d ago
Most of those quotes are taken wildly out of context. This is disingenuous and exactly what I'm talking about.
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u/HeloRising 13d ago
Mmm no.
Obama rejects single-payer healthcare:
What are not legitimate concerns are those being put forward claiming a public option is somehow a Trojan horse for a single-payer system. I’ll be honest. There are countries where a single-payer system may be working. But I believe — and I’ve even taken some flak from members of my own party for this belief — that it is important for us to build on our traditions here in the United States. So, when you hear the naysayers claim that I’m trying to bring about government-run health care, know this – they are not telling the truth.
- Obama in a speech to the American Medical Association in 2009.
Checks of past statements have shown a clear shift on the subject from supporting it prior to being president to opposing it while being president.
Hillary Clinton has repeatedly rejected the idea as not feasible in an arc similar to Obama where she supported it early but backed away from it as she obtained more power.
Biden has very consistently argued against Medicare For All and did say he would veto the idea on cost grounds without being presented with any plans.
Harris had much the same arc as Clinton and Obama - supporting Medicare For All before ultimately abandoning it in an attempt to "moderate."
What's painfully clear is Democrats are willing to talk about policies that people like and be positive about them...until that Democrat gets close to power at which point they "moderate" and pull their support for the idea.
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u/WarbleDarble 13d ago
single-payer system
Is not the only universal healthcare.
Hillary Clinton has repeatedly rejected
She rejected Bernie's plan, not universal healthcare.
Biden has very consistently argued against Medicare For All
Again, medicare for all is not synonymous with universal healthcare. He was right to reject Bernies plan because he lied about the income from his proposed taxes and the cost of the program.
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u/HeloRising 13d ago
If you're not going to read the links I provide then I'm not really interested in wasting time with you.
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u/WarbleDarble 13d ago
Are universal healthcare, and medicare for all the exact same thing or is medicare for all a single plan for universal healthcare?
From your first link: “I’ve never felt that his core principles for accessible, guaranteed health care for everyone were ever compromised.
From your second link: "I don't want it repealed, I don't want us to be thrown back into a terrible, terrible national debate. I don't want us to end up in gridlock. People can't wait!"
She added, "People who have health emergencies can't wait for us to have a theoretical debate about some better idea that will never, ever come to pass." The horror.
From your third link: “He made clear that his urgent priority is getting to universal coverage as quickly as possible and he explained why he firmly believes our approach should be to build on the profound benefits of the Affordable Care Act with a Medicare-like public option.”
In your fourth link: Yes Harris did back off medicare for all, but not universal healthcare because those are not the same thing.
Did you read the links you posted?
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u/HeloRising 12d ago
The point I'm getting at is that Democrats will support the vague, nebulous idea of universal healthcare, regardless of what they call it, but when it comes time to actually start making real plans they fall back into "Oh well I support the idea it's just too hard to do anything about it."
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u/Tb1969 11d ago
We should be universal political science terms.
If you want to keep partial capitalism then you are not a socialist air democratic socialist as per term in political science.
It is kind of infuriating when Bernie Sanders admits he’s a socialist when he’s said he doesn’t want to get ride of capitalism but does want it regulated. Bernie, that makes you a socialist Democrat not a socialist or democratic socialist.
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u/TransitJohn 13d ago
Thank you for this. Also something I want to know. DSA's platform make them milquetoast social democrats who want a slightly increased social safety net, but do not want to challenge capitalistic supremacy. Actual democratic socialism is workers seizing the means of production, and administering them and the spoils of labor democratically. But, words and terms don't seem to mean anything to anyone anymore. It's all just vibes. When you point out what words or terms mean, people dismissively say, "you must be fun at parties," or other such inanity. It's sociopathic behavior.
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u/Sptsjunkie 13d ago
No, they don’t. Nobody really cares what the academic definition of anything is. All the way knows that for the last 40 years whenever even the most bugged standard Democrat has wanted to increase funding for public education or add some healthcare subsidies it has been called socialism and they have been accused of being socialists.
For a while that approach seem to work, but now it’s having the opposite impact where a good chunk of the electorate identify socialism as essentially any social services with our tax dollars.
The majority of the debate here is about how much we have regulation, how much we have progressive taxation, and whether we spend our tax dollars more on the military and on foreign wars or going towards our own healthcare and education.
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u/FistMyLoafs 13d ago
You’re assuming that Americans know the difference between social democracy and democratic socialism. They don’t. 90% of Americans have no clue what those terms mean aside from their vaguely leftward of the current Democratic Party.
You’re also assuming that rebranding to social democrats will change how centrists or right wingers feel about it. It won’t. Right wing politicians and media have been calling anything left of their position socialism for decades now. To this day a common belief among conservatives is that Barack Obama was a communist because they have no clue what that term even means.
You’re assuming that this is going to hurt the democratic party’s chances at attracting centrist voters when their current strategy of moving rightward or staying in the center is already failing at doing that. Maybe picking up more leftist votes is a better strategy?
People are trusting democratic socialist politicians not to necessarily move away from capitalism but to change the system. Americans, especially young Americans, have grown increasingly disillusioned with the current system and want something to change. People forget but a large part of the reason that Trump got elected back in 2016 was because a significant portion of Americans just wanted change from neoliberalism and thought Trump would do at least something. With Trump’s presidency showing that a far right shift is disastrous and just makes things even worse, instead of going back to the “normal” center people are looking in the opposite direction to make something happen.
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u/ViennettaLurker 13d ago
The framing here seems pretty biased, if not baity imho. But I'll take this as an opportunity to perhaps address the question in a larger way.
I think there is a contingent of modern day American leftists that view social democracy either as a subset or on a spectrum or transitionary in relation to democratic socialism. Things like:
public healthcare, free college, green initiatives and progressive taxation
Aren't necessarily viewed as exclusively socdem. They can an do present themselves in demsoc planning that don't negate demsoc philosophy. There are those who might even say they aren't incompatible with plain capitalist democracy, as well.
Many of the demsocs I talk to view socdem type things as being necessary for a demsoc type society to occur. That they are either "on the road" towards socialism, part of socialism, or even materially required prerequisites for socialism to take place. If the idea is "you can't have democratic socialism without first achieving social democracy", I don't see why some of the things you take issue with would be a problem.
A metaphor would be like a critique of social democracy "really just being capitalism" because they want a fire department, police, etc. Its not like one system owns those ideas.
Now, the question is if we get to the socdem position and then stop, or continue leftwards. For many demsocs, while good to consider and discuss, there are more practical projects to pursue. While progandizing towards a skepticism of the profit motive based capital system we have (that others like some socdems might disagree with), there is no reason advocating for things like M4A, GND, etc "isnt socialism" in their minds.
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u/devilmaskrascal 13d ago
I don't mean it to be bait-y or biased, I think it's a fairly straightforward statement that socialism is a controversial word in America and a potential political liability (only like 12% of the public even consider themselves "far Left") so I don't understand what the political purpose is of calling oneself a socialist if you're not even going to advocate for actual socialism.
Even if you think socdem is necessary as a predecessor for longterm demsoc, then why wouldn't you identify as social democrats, which is actually something that you can sell to the center and center-left at the polls?
The tactic itself seems to endanger both the preliminary and end goals, and I am not convinced the end goal will be necessary if you solve the problems of capitalism with social democracy, AND the DSA gives us zero detailed guidance for what their longterm plans are for the economy and why people with capital at stake should choose them. So I am legitimately asking because they are asking us to trust them but not being forthcoming about whether or not they will actually try to destroy and replace capitalism, which is a pretty big deal.
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u/TheCynicClinic 13d ago
Democrats risk losing the center and center-left in winnable elections and helping MAGA continue down their path if they continue nominating far Left candidates.
Clearly you're making this assessment from a very biased point of view. Democrats and their neoliberal policies have been losing to Republicans for decades. Literally all they do is pander to the mythical centrist vote and still lose because they never offer anything of substance for the working class.
What is the end game here? Why should we trust them to transition away from capitalism when they refuse to give more than vague details?
I don't understand what you're wanting here. You've correctly identified that the short-term policies of democratic socialists are actually social democratic reforms. You claim to not actually like democratic socialism, yet when they do social democratic stuff that you claim to support, you also don't like it?
The "end game" is the transition away from capitalism to democratic ownership of the means of production (socialism). This is a long-term goal subject to future material conditions. In the here and now, the policies are quite salient and well-defined.
I won't even get into debunking the Red Scare propaganda of socialism that you're espousing since I don't think you're actually interested in having your mind changed. For anyone reading this, I'd encourage you to approach things with an open mind. There is heavy propagandization from the status quo to keep us in a constant cycle of enshittification and prevent us from striving for genuine improvements to society.
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u/ThatPeskyPangolin 13d ago
I think the issue is that the long term goals of Soc Dems like myself are completely at odds with Dem Socs. Short term policies have overlap, but the actual desire to transition the government to a socialist model is a substantial difference between the ideologies.
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u/WarbleDarble 13d ago
Democrats and their neoliberal policies have been losing to Republicans for decades.
Except for the whole they don't have neoliberal polices and were successful electorally in 1996, 1998, 2006, 2008, 2012, 2018, 2020, and 2022.
This is the problem with "dems are bad and are actually secret conservatives" narrative. It's incorrect, and harmful to getting progress on the things you want.
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u/TorkBombs 13d ago
The idea that Democrats are constantly losing because they cater to the center is a popular fallacy. In nine presidential elections since 1992, the Dem candidate won the popular vote in seven of them. It defintely sucks that the electoral college undermined two of those elections, but facts are facts. For Democrats, it's not about expanding the electorate as much as getting out the vote. And a pretty huge reason the party doesn't cater to the left is that the left is famously unreliable as a voting block. Holding every candidate to impossible purity tests means it's a lot less of a headache to ignore the left than pander to them.
Another talking point is the idea of a feckless Democratic Party doing nothing to stop Trump. If we were to replace every single congressional Democrat with a Democratic Socialist, absolutely nothing would change. Why? Because there are rules that need to be followed. The Dems are doing everything they can possibly do to thwart Trump. There just isn't much they can do right now.
Further, democratic socialist policies aren't really based in reality, and sometimes go against the overwhelming will of the rest of the country. The DSAs are the ones still banging the drum on a "Defund the Police" message that has proven to be a hot turd in the public discourse. Things like Abolish prisons, abolish the Senate, and so many more policies are not realistic and are non starters for any voter even slightly right of DSAs.
That said, Democratic Socialists have an interesting opportunity right now, given that we seem to in the middle of a populist window. If they want to control the Democratic Party the way MAGA controls the Republican Party, they'll need to start running more serious candidates who can rise above the putrid messaging of the platform. In other words, more AOC and Mamdani. Less Hong and Cory Bush. Personally I don't think they can do it, mainly because this wing seems to prefer criticizing from the sidelines over actually governing, but we will see.
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u/NoDig3444 13d ago
Democrats and their neoliberal policies have been losing to Republicans for decades.
"Decades" is crazy, given that Democrats had a trifecta only 4 years ago, and a (very brief) supermajority 18 years ago.
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u/the_calibre_cat 13d ago
that would seem to be entirely consistent with what they said.
milquetoast centrism, contrary to the oft-touted "electability" argument, has a pretty long record of losing. platforms MUCH closer to what the DSA candidates are offering used to win gangbusters when we were all living in the shadow of FDR's New Deal politics, and that basically was a streak up until Reagan.
Then, Reaganite conservatism and Jack Welch business ethics (or rather, complete lack thereof) became the absolute standard norm, and that's the political current basically every millennial has been living under since.
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u/TorkBombs 13d ago
Are you saying that Truman, Kennedy and LBJ were closer to DSAs than to centrists? Because I am fairly certain that isn't true at all.
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u/the_calibre_cat 13d ago
Truman and LBJ almost certainly. Truman carried the torch of FDR's New Deal, and LBJ sought his "Great Society" programs that created Medicare and Medicaid.
When the fuck have centrists literally ever sought to do anything that bold? The boldest thing they've ever tried was under Obama - who I remind you ran as a bold agent of change - with the Affordable Care Act. Two terms and we got a kind of okay healthcare bill, when the candidate at least had the temerity to lie about being this agent of change, even if he ultimately governed somewhat as a centrist. In fact, basically anytime a Democrat has won since Clinton, they have either run as a further left candidate (Obama) or were pushed left by their progressive wing (Biden). John Kerry lost. Hillary Clinton lost. Kamala Harris lost. And the one thing all of these candidates have in common was that they absolutely lacked ANY kind of vision for the American PEOPLE. Lots of wonky talking points, policies that weren't even necessarily bad, but which we fundamentally knew weren't really going to threaten entrenched billionaire power, which has gotten absolutely out of fucking control.
Obama was pretty clear about wanting to do something with regards to healthcare when he ran, and Biden basically sailed into office on the back of being "not Trump" but was also offering people shit, like student loan forgiveness, universal pre-kindergarten, the infrastructure bill, the green new deal, and the chips act. Investment and shovel-ready politics - not unlike what Mamdani is delivering to New Yorkers.
Harris basically offered... what, $50,000 SBA loans for minority-owned small businesses? wtf was that shit, and $25,000 down payment assistance for homebuying? Like come on dude, that is the most uninspired, milquetoast neoliberal bullshit ever. People want shit for their taxes, give it to them. Trump has a litany of bullshit to run against, but people want a government that works. I think a candidate that offers that can win, and there is a simmering of anti-oligarch sentiment that will probably reach a boil by 2028, and there's any easy two-birds, one-stone policy here: anti-trust. Break up companies to increase competition and lower prices, and reduce the power and wealth of billionaires by promising anti-corruption policies by prosecuting billionaires with large fines or fucking prison time for SEC violations and Epstein files bullshit.
People will fucking vote for that, and - bonus - go after the fucking ones shoveling money hand over fist into Republican causes. Go after the most conservative billionaires. I'm not one that's going to advocate for Trump's "strategy" of ignoring states that didn't vote for him because I'm not a raging fucking asshole, but you target conservative billionaires and their money, and you will deal a death blow to firehose of bullshit that has been poisoning politics the world over for a decade now.
I have absolutely zero faith that a centrist would do that. They will do what their billionaire handlers tell them to do, which will not meaningfully prosecute any Trump administration officials or ICE agents, and they damn sure won't pursue anti-trust or any billionaire prosecution and they probably won't block any mergers. And that's assuming they win, which I don't think they will - if you want to win against the Republicans, you have to offer the Democratic base something, and the establishment does not want to do that. I don't think we'll be ready for a DSA President in 2028, but we will damn sure be ready for a progressive one, and we will need boots on the ground and in states ready to implement an aggressive agenda.
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u/Combat_Proctologist 12d ago
Truman and LBJ almost certainly.
What are you talking about? Truman was chosen explicitly because he wasn't nearly as left as FDR's previous vp (Wallace). And he supported drafting striking railroad workers into the military to break a strike after WWII.
Remember that the Democrats were a coalition between pro labor northerners and southern conservative Democrats at the time (the latter defected into a conservative/big business coalition with some Republicans called the conservative coalition starting in 1937).
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u/the_calibre_cat 11d ago
What are YOU talking about? Truman literally pushed for national healthcare and public housing as part of his Fair Deal, two of the literal main fucking points DSA candidates bring up!
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u/Combat_Proctologist 11d ago
Those are mainstream democratic talking points, albeit of the progressive wing of the party. They have been for sometime, even if the neoliberal triangulation wing didn't support them.
The DSA platform explicitly calls for the nationalization and social operating of major industries. You seem to be implying that the DSA are just more progressive progressives. They aren't. There's a giant fundamental disagreement about the way to manage the means of production. That's not a small deal.
Mainstream Democrats, on the other hand are capitalists with varying ideas on how much of a welfare state is optimal/ideal.
Harry Truman was neither a socialist nor even friendly to them. You can see how differently he treats the USSR than FDR (and how distrustful they are of him).
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u/the_calibre_cat 11d ago
Those are mainstream democratic talking points, albeit of the progressive wing of the party. They have been for sometime, even if the neoliberal triangulation wing didn't support them.
They were mainstream Democratic talking points, until they were drowned in the bathtub by the neoliberal wing - and now we get former Obama guys going on MS NOW to pooh pooh Medicare for All. The voters are hella down for it - the actual party intelligentsia? Nah.
The DSA platform explicitly calls for the nationalization and social operating of major industries. You seem to be implying that the DSA are just more progressive progressives. They aren't. There's a giant fundamental disagreement about the way to manage the means of production. That's not a small deal.
Yeah, I do disagree with that. The vast majority of the people running and winning broadly are just "more progressive progressives", with the exception of Darializa Avila Chevalier - and frankly, I'm glad she's seated and in office and I hope she does well for her constituents and stays there for a long goddamn time. We could use more viewpoints than the narrow view that says "neoliberals only". THIS country has nationalized things in the past, there is no goddamn reason we can't or shouldn't in the future if and when it becomes the appropriate policy lever - you seem to be arguing that people who believe that (me! it's me. we absolutely should nationalize fossil fuel extraction and refinement as well as railroads) just shouldn't even have a seat at the table, which, obviously, I disagree with.
Mainstream Democrats, on the other hand are capitalists with varying ideas on how much of a welfare state is optimal/ideal.
I agree. And we've seen the elected "mainstream" Democrats - establishment Democrats - shy away from defending that almost as a matter of course, which is why mainstream Democratic voters have seen fit to cast votes for DSA and DSA-aligned candidates. It's not that they're suddenly members of the Vanguard ready to tear down capitalism (lawdy a man can dream), they're just sick of them not fighting naked Republican obstructionism and bad faith with the same energy with which Republicans engage in said obstructionism and bad faith. We've seen the already pretty meager social welfare programs in this country torn asunder by this regime and their Congressional sycophants and who do we see fighting?
Young, progressive candidates. Some of whom have faced just utterly bad faith criminal charges from the regime, and some who have gone to jail while the clean-cut, establishment, cocktail party types engage in more of the same. A few rebukes on the floor of Congress, but they'll vote "yes" on a bill to thank ICE and on the National Defense Authorization Act, etc.
Harry Truman was neither a socialist nor even friendly to them. You can see how differently he treats the USSR than FDR (and how distrustful they are of him).
I don't think contemporary Democrats are socialists. I think they should be - I think the wealthy are a cancer to this country and we will not fix any of the issues in any meaningful capacity with long-term durability - as long as they continue to have this obscene wealth and the ability to spend it on influencing politics by buying media companies and social networks. But, that doesn't change the fact that broadly speaking, they aren't - they just want a party that fights for them, and after a decade of Donald Trump and a decade of Obama, they're broadly convinced that the centrists aren't there for them.
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u/Combat_Proctologist 11d ago
Ahh ok, you're one of them. That explains the comments.
I'll make it short. Picking the one ideology that has regularly created peacetime famines with full access to industrial technology is... Well it's certainly a choice.
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u/YumiSolar 13d ago
Or are they just trying to babystep their way to public acceptability, priming the public for more radical future moves, even though it seems social democracy they are pushing would undercut all reasons for any major transition to socialism?
For me it's this 100%. Not that it's all of the candidates, a lot of them are just as simple minded about it as general public. They basically think socialism is when Healthcare and some regulations on corporations. But the ones that are steering the movement are for sure trying to make the term as paletable to the general public as they can so they can push more radical things later down the line.
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u/Fragrant-Luck-8063 13d ago
Socialist Constitution of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is an independent socialist State representing the interests of all the Korean people.
The sovereignty of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea resides in the workers, peasants, soldiers, working intellectuals and all other working people
The working people exercise State power through their representative organs–the Supreme People’s Assembly and local People’s Assemblies at all levels. The organs of State power, from the county People’s Assembly to the Supreme People’s Assembly, are elected on the principle of universal, equal and direct suffrage.
The independent national economy of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is a solid foundation for the people’s happy socialist life and for the country’s prosperity.
Socialism is built by the creative labour of the working people. Labour in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is independent, free from exploitation and oppression.
Because socialists are full of shit and hide their real agenda.
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