I’ve spoken to hundreds of voters in “flyover country.” Socialism is an easy sell.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Kentucky voters are ready for a bold progressive agenda.
On a bitterly cold day in late January, I knocked on the door of a home in Louisville, Kentucky’s Camp Taylor neighborhood. I was running for state representative in a Democratic primary and was spreading the word about my candidacy. Camp Taylor was an interesting community politically: It was full of registered Democrats who hadn’t been turning up to vote in recent elections.
A woman in her 50s came to the door and peeked through the curtain at me. “Hi,” I said. “I’m Richard Becker and I’m running for state representative!” She turned the deadbolt and opened the door.
“I just wanted to stop by and introduce myself and find out what issues—” I was interrupted by a voice from further in the house. “I want to know if you’re gonna fight for people like me!” a woman’s voice said from the couch.
“That’s my daughter,” the woman said. “She got hurt in an accident and can’t walk very well anymore.”
“And now this governor thinks I should have to go to work to get my health care? I can’t even walk to the bathroom without help!” the younger woman cried out, referring, presumably, to Gov. Matt Bevin’s plans to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients.
“I don’t know what to say,” I said. “And I don’t know what to tell you other than I will fight for you. Fighting Gov. Bevin’s Medicaid work requirements and fighting for universal—”
“What we need is single-payer health care!” the mother interrupted.
“I couldn’t agree more,” I said. I stopped by that house twice more before the end of the campaign, and by Election Day, they had placed one of my signs in their yard.
![ROzOwUGo_400x400[1].jpg](https://thenewstalkers.com/upimg/image/upimg_file/29687/384 "ROzOwUGo_400x400[1].jpg")
It’s a district that is overwhelmingly Democratic by voter registration numbers, but like many communities across the South, the Democrats here don’t necessarily always vote with their party. The district went for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primary by a margin of 53 percent to 45 percent. In the general election, Hillary Clinton won the district with just 54 percent of the vote, or 9,554 votes, out of a total of more than 18,000 Democrats. Many of the registered Democrats in this part of town voted for Donald Trump.
I knocked on hundreds of doors. While I didn’t win my race — I finished second in a three-way primary — through my conversations, I heard over and over again that Louisville voters were tired of timidity, incrementalism, and equivocation. They craved boldness and candidates who will not only fight for them but with them on issues that affect their lives: truly universal health care, free college tuition, combatting income inequality, and restoring and strengthening workers’ rights.
The popularity of the teacher strikes show that “red” states are ready for progressivism
I ran for the state legislature in the shadow of an intensely controversial legislative session that saw right-wing Gov. Bevin ram through so-called “pension reform,” gutting retirement benefits for public employees. Apparently startled by the backlash to his proposals, Bevin lobbed vitriolic insults at teachers and other public employees, calling them “selfish,” “thuggish,” and “ignorant and uninformed.”
Bevin’s push to make cuts to public employee retirement benefits came as teacher strikes swept the country, from West Virginia to Colorado. Inspired by their fellow educators across the country and angry over Bevin’s insults, Kentucky’s teachers shut down their schools for several days earlier this year and rallied in Frankfort, the capital.
To stand, as I did, on the steps of the Kentucky State Capitol amidst a sea of red — striking teachers, marching en masse on the legislature, wore red to symbolize solidarity (“Wear Red for Ed[ucation]”) — underscored one of the values we had set out to uphold on the campaign: that an organized working class is the most powerful political force you’ll find.
Across Kentucky, the potency of the teachers’ movement persists, with record numbers of educators running for office, and one teacher, R. Travis Brenda, even defeating an incumbent, House majority leader Jonathan Shell, in a Republican primary. Brenda ran on a pro-pension, pro-public education platform. This uprising echoed in red states across the country is proof of a nationwide working-class awakening.
Voters are fed up with a political class that defends its corporate masters and spits in the faces of working-class people. An overwhelming majority of voters, 77 percent, want to see the influence of money in politics curbed, while establishment politicians of both parties continue accepting campaign checks from big business.
Democrats need to reach out to people disengaged with the political system
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s stunning victory over establishment Democrat Joe Crowley in New York’s 14th District primary this year set off the latest iteration of Democratic Party hand-wringing over the future of the party. Establishment Democrats across America wasted no time in admonishing the left to know its place and discounting Ocasio-Cortez’s success as an aberration and a product of her deep-blue district. This political earthquake, they assured us, was most certainly not indicative of any broader political trend.
But to see the potential of progressive politics, even in supposedly moderate states, we need only look to the success of candidates like Virginia’s Lee Carter, a 31-year old former Marine who ran for the House of Delegates in 2017 as an open socialist against an entrenched Republican incumbent — and won. Or, obviously, Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign, which saw victories in Rust Belt states across the Midwest, including Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, and West Virginia.
Further, polling suggests that progressive or even “socialist” policy prescriptions actually enjoy considerable support among voters, with Americans supporting a federal jobs guarantee by a margin of 52 percent to 29 percent.
With only 23 percent of voters casting a ballot in the 2018 Kentucky primaries for both parties, progressives within the party have a real opportunity to expand the voter pool by offering a message that draws people into the political process. The Democratic Party can win by attracting non-voters who are disengaged from a political system and bought and paid for by corporate America — and by embracing the next generation of political leadership, a generation that by all accounts is more progressive than their parents on almost every issue.
Although I didn’t win my bid for public office, the issues I ran on — Medicare-for-all, restoring and strengthening workers’ rights, and free college tuition — resonated overwhelmingly with the voters I spoke with. I earned the endorsements of sitting members of the Kentucky General Assembly and more than a dozen local labor unions. Not bad for someone campaigning on an openly left-wing platform in a supposedly centrist city.
The question today is: Will the party continue to circle the wagons around more corporate-friendly, “mainstream” candidates, or will it welcome and support truly progressive candidates who will fight for the working class?
How Democrats choose to answer the call of my generation will likely determine whether the party goes the way of the Whigs — drifting away into history as a failed political party — or if it can secure majority status once again. If and when the party chooses to open itself up to more progressive elements and ideas, you can bet there will be millions of us ready to help realize that vision.
Richard Becker is a union organizer, millennial, and political activist in Louisville, Kentucky. He ran for state representative in Kentucky’s 35th District in the May 2018 primary election.
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Yeah... that should resonate...
They want more social democracy . They want more statist redistribution of wealth. They call this 'socialism'.
The fundamental economic system of a nation does not have to change from capitalism to socialism (nor will it!) for a government to produce more public programs funded by taxation (and - horribly - more debt). By this confused view of socialism, the USA has be ' doing socialism ' in a very significant way since FDR.
Oh, indeed. But the left has spent far too much effort running and hiding every time some idiot shouted "Socialism!!!"
It's a smarter tactic to confront the word. Associate it with policies the 90% of the public approves. Wash away the stigma. Get out of the right's semantic trap.
Then when someone says, "But that's not really Socialism!", the answer is, "Whatever we call it, it's a good idea, right?"
The widespread confusion about this concept bugs me. And these bizarre notions have been (and continue to be) stubbornly perpetuated for decades. The term should be abolished - it no longer has semantic value.
There are some people who use the abuse of language as a weapon. Frank Luntz institutionalized the practice within the Republican party. Thus the bugaboo that they have made of "socialism". They repeat incessantly that "socialism is evil" and that "Democrats are socialists".
So while I agree that we'd all be better off to never again use the word, I doubt that the right will willingly abandon such a handy weapon.
You may be certain that Luntz's Wikipedia page says... very little...
What do they mean by a jobs guarantee?
I definitely would like for American to get out from under its corporate overlords and we need new blood in the Democratic Party....get rid of the old, tired, establishment that are corporate shills (like the Clintons!)
I waffle over free college only because who pays for it? And does that include vocational schools?
Oh....for sure lower taxes on those of us who work
The idea its that everyone should have a job, with the government as employer-of-last-resort.
Krugman ran the numbers about a week ago (after what's-her-name's primary victory), and found that even in a pessimistic context, the program would cost less than the GOP tax cut last year.
What kind of jobs would the gov't be giving people?
I tend to worry about the national debt.
Whatever they're competent at. Works projects, if there's nothing better (like the WPA during the Depression).
Well, our infrastructure needs a good refurbishing.
You're right to worry. (Always remember that a deficit can be corrected by raising revenue, as well as by lowering spending.)
Let's think about this a moment. If someone doesn't have a job, do we let them starve? I certainly hope not. Do we just give them money (or food stamps)? There are doubts about the wisdom of that.
So the idea here is to use that same money as salary for productive work. The collectivity gets value in return for its assistance.
Exactly.
Please don't expect any Replies from me, as long as you persist in asking closed, leading questions.
Please don't expect any Replies from me, as long as you persist in asking closed, leading questions.
Please don't expect any Replies from me, as long as you persist in asking closed, leading questions.
Please don't expect any Replies from me, as long as you persist in asking closed, leading questions.
Where did you see that?
It's a valid question. Also, you can't just generate things to do out of thin air. You have someone with 0 job skills what do you have them do? Pick up litter?
Like you posted......Pick up litter. Unless even that has a some obscure needed skill we don't know about yet. Maybe a "Study" is warranted ?
I don't have a problem with work requirements for entitlements as long as the person receiving the entitlements is able-bodied and isn't burdened with taking care of small children. Makes no sense to make a mother with toddlers go to work when the cost of the childcare will more than likely exceed any wage offset she may earn.
So what do you do with people who refuse to work? There are too many who would refuse to do anything. Why would they work when they have been given free stuff for so long? Not saying it's everyone but there is quite a bit of people like that
edit. In theory I like the idea. I just think it's got more flaws than people realize
Whom are the ones that refuse to work ?
Language is interesting. You use the word "entitlement". If a person is "entitled" to something, then they have a right to it. They "have title".
But somehow, people don't have a right to their "entitlement".
Why does an heir get an inheritance? They have done nothing to deserve it. Are they "entitled"?
All very... strange...
Food, shelter, comfort....are we not "entitled" to these things?
What else should we call SNAP, TANF, and Medicaid? Benefits? I don't think that word is appropriate, either.
University studies are free in many countries. (Lodging and food, not so much... so the total experience isn't free.)
The budget problem in America isn't that the government spends too much (although the military budget is ridiculously high) but that the government doesn't have enough revenue.
Meanwhile, the ultra-rich are getting ever richer... and fast. They could and should pay for higher education for all who make the grade.
Then who's gonna scrub their toilets?
Because the previous owner who has passed away wanted him/her to have it .The government array took it "share" when it was acquired. The government derrserves it even less than you think the heir does .
I'd like to see them labeled "rights".
Exactly the government is supposed to being working for us not us working for the benefit of the government.
Undocumented immigrants. Same as now.
And why should that matter?
Because it’s their money not the governments.
It was his property. He should be able to do what he want to with it. The government does note serve it at all
He's dead!
It was kinda a joke, Bob.
So was my answer...
so? He let his wishes be know prior to his death.
Quite a few on welfare currently. Are you denying there wouldn't be people who would refuse to work? You have to have consequences in a system like that. Why would someone work if you are willing to give them enough to begin with that they wouldn't need to work? If I was going to get a roof, food, and utilities doing nothing why would I take a govt job picking up litter when I'll be fine sitting at home playing Xbox all day?
ok
So?
He's dead. Gone. He doesn't own anything anymore.
Because you are a healthy human being able to stand on your feet for 8 hours a day and since I didn't allow my 20 year old son to do that, I sure as hell aren't gonna let YOU do that. Sound reasonable?
But his estate lives on and his will should be honored. It isn’t always possible to get all of our assets into trusts before we kick the bucket.
So they're all dead beats ?
"Why would someone work if you are willing to give them enough to begin "
That's more a Liberal Push.
Why?
bit you allow that now. There are people that abuse they system with nonreprocussions. So in this hypothetical scenario where everyone is given jobs.... what are the consequences for refusing to work?
I didn't say they were all deadbeats. I said it was naive to believe that there aren't any. There would be people who would weigh working at all Vs doing nothing and still being provided enough to survive. If we are going to hypothetical this scenario I think it is a valid question
Once we get rid of all the brown illegals someone will need to pick the tomatoes.
We will have machines to do that in the near future.
Oh, probably the kind that only illegal immigrants would do....farm work, landscaping, construction, housekeeping, kitchen help, sweeping the streets.
Mow the Massa's lawn.....
No wonder my maters are always bruised.....
You don't get your bennies.
BTW, the you in my scenario was the general you, not you specifically. And I don't allow deadbeats in my house. My son was forced to get a job and I threw my brother out of my house. You still think I would allow it today?
FMC was working on machines like that when I worked for them almost 40 years ago
Socialism is great if you don’t like toilet paper or eating food. Look at how happy the people of Venezuela are in their socialist paradise.
Yea, but they haven't told us which version yet. I want a list of the different versions so I can have something to choose from.
"I’ve spoken to hundreds of voters in “flyover country.”
Only 299,999,700 folks to go.
I love how conservatives in KY voted for governor Bevins in part on his promise to get rid of Obamacare........but then after the election they were outraged to learn that their beloved KYnect health care was going away.
The latest news is that thanks to Bevins and the GOP about 500,000 more low-income folks are losing their dental and vision coverage.
Good if they want coverage they can pay for it themselves rather than trying to stick others with their bills.
The funny part is that those dimwitted conservatives will almost certainly vote for Bevins and Trump again despite the fact that it's literally killing them.
No the ones that vote for Bevin and Trump are the millions that don't want to get stuck paying other peoples bills.
Socialism is only an easy sell to lazy people. I don't know anyone that has worked their ass off starting a business that is a fan of socialism.
People are tired of only having 2 choices in elections because only the major 2 parties have any chance financially of ever winning.
By expanding one party's platform to include more social programs for the people is an easy sell but branding it as "socialism" is not going to be accepted even by many who may agree with the policies.
Push the policies and not the branding and then it can win.
Kentucky has not seen anything beneficial out of McConnell or Manchin or their governor. When people get really desperate and fed up they will buy another candidate with social policies instead of the same old crap Manchin (D), and McConnell (R) have handed them.
Yea they are tired of only having 2 choices but too stupid to do anything about it. Even when we had the 2 must unlikable candidates in history a third party still couldn't get 5%
People are still convinced if they don't vote for the duopoly they are throwing their vote away.
Of all the ologies and isms, Socialism on paper is the most appealing from a human standpoint, the only fly in the ointment is that once you involve humans with all their foibles the whole thing comes off the rails.
The storm has passed...
The Umpire has called an end to the rain-delay. The game may begin again.