What, Us Socialists? Dems Try To Deny What Their Party Is Fast Becoming
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Political Parties: Democrats have been very busy lately trying to tell the public that theirs is not an extremist socialist party. But the public sees through the smoke screen. Just a third now see the Democratic Party as mainstream.
This month, the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll asked if the public believed that Democratic candidates for Congress were "in the mainstream," or "out of step."
Just 33% said they felt Democrats were mainstream, while 56% said they were out of step. That's a dramatic turnaround from just two years ago, when 48% said Democrats were mainstream and only 42% said they were out of step.
To be sure, the public is equally split on Republicans: 33% say they're mainstream, and 57% say they're out of step. But while Democrats have lost significant ground, Republicans are gaining — which is remarkable given the nearly 100% negative coverage the party gets.
The public, it seems, is finally picking up on something that we've been documenting in this space for years. That it is Democrats — not Republicans — who have been drifting to the political edge.
We took a close look at IBD/TIPP poll results back in 2013 and found that on issue after issue Democrats were out of touch with mainstream America.
For example, our poll showed that 61% of the public — including 68% of independents — wanted a smaller government with fewer services. But 59% of Democrats wanted a bigger government and more services.
Nearly two thirds of Democrats said they supported a government-run health care system, compared with only 28% of independents and 8% of Republicans.
We reported on a Gallup poll in 2015 showing that Democrats had become far more liberal over the previous 15 years, while Republicans hadn't changed in their views much (and had moved leftward on some social issues).
Last year we looked at data from the Pew Research Center and found that the "center" of the Democratic Party had moved dramatically to left between 1994 and 2017. The center of the Republican Party had barely changed.
Yet, all along Democrats and their handmaidens in the press declared that Republicans were the ones who are ever-more extreme.
But with the increasingly harsh and often violent rhetoric coming from Democrats since President Trump won the election, and the coronation of socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — the veil has been lifted.
In fact, Democratic leaders are now on the defensive, claiming that despite all appearances to the contrary, their party isn't extremist, much less socialist.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, after being asked if socialism was ascendant in the party, said "I don't accept any characterization of our party presented by the Republicans. So let me reject that right now."
Both Rep. Maxine Waters and Sen. Elizabeth Warren got pressed on the issue this week by CNBC's John Harwood, and both denied the "S" label.
"The Democratic Party is not a socialist party," Waters said. But then she followed that up by saying of socialist Bernie Sanders, "I consider him basically a Democrat."
Far-left Sen. Warren felt the need to make it clear that "I am a capitalist. Come on. I believe in markets."
For now, Democrats don't want to admit what their party has turned into, because the "socialist" brand isn't very popular.
But look at what it now stands for.
The Democratic base went head over heels for socialist Bernie Sanders in 2016, to the point where he nearly stole the nomination from Hillary Clinton — who said she struggled with her own party because they thought of her as a "capitalist."
Democrats have by and large embraced a "Medicare for all" health plan that would outlaw private insurance and is to the left of every other health system in the world, except maybe Cuba.
Many of the 2020 presidential hopefuls are on board with "government-guaranteed jobs," an idea last seen in the Soviet Union's constitution.
And, as if that weren't enough, Democratic Party Chairman Tom Perez called socialist Ocasio-Cortez "the future of our party."
We don't doubt that many Democrats are sincere in their belief that they are sensible centrists. And there's no doubt that some still are.
But when you live in an increasingly left-wing bubble, extremism can easily start to look mainstream. And that's precisely what's been happening, with an increasing leftist media, an aggressively left-wing base, and most of the moderates drummed out of the party.
Now the public at large is seeing what we've been pointing out for years. And that's a good thing for everyone, including Democrats.
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Fascists necessarily see everything to their left as "socialism".
No surprise.
Socialists call everyone who disagree with them "Fascists". Just like "if you don't vote for Obama you're racist"
Umm... No. You have that backwards. It should be
"Fascists call everyone who disagree with them 'Socialists' "
There. It's fixed.
Ah yes. The PeeWee Herman Defense. Just as expected.
They sure keep trying to baffle people with their BS. They call it "Democratic Socialism" because they know that can't point to any Socialist county that works or any other brand of Socialism that has worked. They have to try to convince you that they have some new brand of Socialism that will fix everything but will give you no specifics on how it will work because they have no plan and know it won't work for long.
It is strange that Bernie, et. al. self-label as Democratic Socialists since the concept of Democratic Socialism is strictly theoretical. It has never been applied in any nation - there has never been a nation with a Democratic Socialist economic system. What is even stranger is that they oft point to the Nordic model as an example of Democratic Socialism. But the Nordic model is a system based on capitalism - it is social democracy (not Democratic Socialism). Social Democracy uses a highly regulated capitalist economy to pay for government administered public programs (e.g. universal healthcare). The productive resources are controlled by a minority (not collectively by the people). It is basically the Fabian model which was originally conceived as a means to gradually evolve from capitalism to socialism. (Turns out to be am extremely slow gradual process.) People like to refer to this as 'socialism'. Maybe sometime in the distant future these systems will actually evolve into socialism; currently they employ capitalist economies.
The way the term 'socialism' is tossed around nowadays is both sad and funny. Our world is all capitalism. In every significant nation the ownership and control of the productive resources of the economy (i.e. that which makes the goods and services that drive the economy) are in the hands of a minority. Sometimes that minority includes government officials empowered by an authoritarian government. If a nation ever gets to the point where it uses democratic processes (the people active and engaged) to determine how to use its productive resources (e.g. vote on migrating to strictly renewable energy and incurring the time and cost of infrastructure changes to get the environmental and long-term sustainability benefits) then that would be an indication of a nation that might have the mechanisms of socialism - where the people are able to genuinely effect control over their economy. (Whether or not this is a good thing is not the question. The point is understanding the difference between capitalism and socialism.)
Nations like Venezuela expropriated many of their productive resources to fund hand-outs to the people (genuine redistribution of wealth, statism and fascism) under the label of 'socialism'. They basically crippled their capitalist economy and wasted vast natural resources with an authoritarian government attempting to create a capitalist command economy. Maybe Chavez genuinely believed he could control the economy by the force of government, but regardless of the label used he did not change the economic system from capitalism to something else. He simply hobbled a once viable capitalist economy and called it 'socialism' in contrast to the fact that the people of Venezuela never had control over their economy.
I wonder why HA isn't using any current polling in his article. Of course, I don't wonder why. That would undermine this most current offering of rubbish filled wishful thinking.
Oh! Such cynicism...
Most unseemly!
And surely undeserved.
If the Democrats are socialists then then Republicans are fascists.