I.
Of mice and candidates
In a June 2019 post, Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas asserted that any of our well-known candidates could beat Trump and suggested therefore that folks should feel comfortable supporting “whoever you like” — but in the comment thread, Daily Kos contributing editor Adam Bronin (Adam B) urged an exception:
The one asterisk to “vote for who you want” is that Republicans are ready to weaponize socialism against certain candidates, and their polling supports it. It would be consistent with the 2018 state legislative results in PA, where one of the few races we lost in the Phila suburbs was a ~400 vote margin nailbiter where our candidate was a self-professed Democratic socialist who was pounded for that in repeated mailers.
Does Adam’s example actually help his case? We know that even in a wave election, we can’t expect that 100% of our candidates will win. The Democratic candidate he refers to here, Kristin Seale, who identifies as a democratic socialist, lost by just 450 votes. In the previous cycle, another Democratic challenger running against the same incumbent lost by over 4600 votes. Seale did exceptionally well for a first-time candidate running against an incumbent. Correlation does not prove causation, so we can’t say that her identifying as a democratic socialist is the reason she did this well, but we can say for sure that her identifying as a democratic socialist didn’t prevent her from doing this well.
Adam points out that a number of other Democrats in Philadelphia suburbs won their races, and suggests Seale would have won, too, if she’d not identified as a democratic socialist. How do we test that hypothesis? Each race is different in myriad ways. Candidates aren’t like laboratory mice which are bred to be as alike as possible and are placed in environments designed to be as alike as possible except for the one experimental condition you’re testing.
But imagine you’re the omnipotent “Q” from Star Trek, and you can turn back time, erase Seale’s affinity for democratic socialism, restart the clock, and see what happens. Would this new version of Seale even run? And whoever runs, would they end up getting more or fewer votes? If you don’t like the results, you could try a different tweak. For instance, this article about Seale notes that
Seale is a full-time worker whose family depends on her income, which means she’s been campaigning in her off-hours.
You could tweak things so she can spend more time campaigning, and see how that works out.
II.
Democrats can’t afford morally or politically to mirror Republicans in treating democratic socialism as radical
There are many similarities between Bernie Sanders’s rhetoric and that of his friend and colleague, Elizabeth Warren. But of course one big difference is that Warren has made a point of identifying as a “capitalist,” while Sanders has made a point of identifying as a “democratic socialist.”
If I may indulge in another Star Trek reference: Sanders would like to see everyone live long and prosper. Of course Warren would like to see that too, and she emphasizes capitalism to credit the role of private enterprise in generating opportunity.
Sanders emphasizes democratic socialism to stress that broad prosperity must be a public goal that we pro-actively work to achieve, and that this effort can only succeed through participatory democratic means — taking advantage of our numbers and the peaceful tools of democracy: organizing, demonstrating, running for office, voting.
Well of course that’s not radical, and I think most Democrats would find nothing to disagree with in that philosophy. What about the term “socialism,” though? In a May 2019 poll, Gallup reported 74% of Democratic respondents said they’d vote for a “socialist” presidential candidate. (Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper likely didn’t help his short-lived presidential campaign by attacking prospective progressive programs, such as Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, as “socialist.”) Since the Gallup poll didn’t define the term “socialist,” some respondents may well have interpreted it as further left than Sanders or Ocasio-Cortez. Even so, 47% of all respondents (not just Democrats) said they’d vote for a generic “socialist” presidential candidate. And of course self-described democratic socialist Bernie Sanders has consistently polled higher than that: many polls, this cycle and last cycle, have shown a clear majority favor Sanders over Trump for president.
And it’s not just a matter of folks liking Sanders and disliking Trump. Folks’ views are evolving about the marketplace: an August 2018 Gallup poll found that more Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents had a positive view of “socialism” (57%) than of “capitalism” (47%, a drop of 9 points since 2016.)
What these data suggest is that the ubiquitous Republican (and the occasional Democratic) sputtering about “socialism” is increasingly losing efficacy as a political tactic. We saw the same pattern with marriage equality, which was once viewed as a radical, fringe idea. The polls in favor of equality kept rising as more and more folks saw that antagonism to the idea was not logical or practical or just. Nowadays there’s less advantage to Democrats acting like the term “socialism” is poison rather than pointing out why democratic socialism is benign.
It’s no wonder people’s views on the marketplace are evolving. Sanders often calls attention to dreadfully sobering statistics such as the fact that three super-rich Americans today together own more wealth than the entire bottom half of the American population. And an estimated half a million Americans each year face bankruptcy due to medical bills. Recently, 16-year-old Greta Thunberg captured the world’s attention at the U.N., saying, in part,
People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!
When we know we’re facing crises that demand very large-scale reforms and public investments, Democrats must beware of the moral inappropriateness of mirroring Republicans’ kneejerk cheering for capitalism and jeering at democratic socialism (not to mention the increasing political downsides of that mirroring, which those Gallup polls suggest.)
III.
It’s leadership, not radicalism
Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez certainly haven’t been relegated to a political backwater for embracing democratic socialism. A political newcomer, Ocasio-Cortez won her district’s primary against a well-seasoned incumbent and quickly showed she was on the leading edge of progressive politics by doing yeoman’s work advocating for the Green New Deal. This is one of the reasons for her popularity on our side of the aisle — particularly among young people, the future of the party. But perhaps the main reason she’s a Democratic rising star is a trait she shares with Sanders: authenticity. They come across as progressives of deep conviction. They seem to be saying, and fighting for, what they really believe, not taking cues from political consultants or the latest opinion polls. In other words, they act like leaders.
Sanders’s tenacity and his acumen at getting legislation passed have earned him the respect of colleagues on both sides of the aisle. If you visit the home page of the Senate Democrats (democrats.senate.gov), right below the headline “Our Senators” and right next to the headline “What We Stand For” you’ll see a large photo of Bernie Sanders. Scroll down just a little and you’ll see that Sanders is one of 10 senators who comprise the Democratic Senate leadership team. He was one of the original founders of the Democratic Party’s Congressional Progressive Caucus and was its chair for 8 years. And he is, of course, one of a handful of top contenders for the Democratic nomination for president.
If you examine Sanders’s long track record of achievement as a mayor, as a member of the U.S. House and Senate, and as a progressive policy advocate, it’s clear that his brand of socialism has always been about reform, not radicalism.
He’s no enemy of private enterprise. Indeed, one of Sanders’s most enthusiastic boosters (and a campaign co-chair), Ben Cohen, is himself a famous entrepreneur (co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s). This 2014 National Journal article noted, among a list of Sanders’s accomplishments as a 4-term mayor:
[Sanders] created a spunky economic-development program that has for three decades incubated a vast swath of profitable, socially conscious local businesses.
Everyone knows private enterprise is not going away in America — but that doesn’t mean every industry will continuously grow and none will diminish. The for-profit health insurance industry, like the coal industry, may have seen its best days. Because whether we’re talking about health insurance, energy, or anything else we rely on, it’s not realistic — or desirable — to think that Americans will never develop new systems that have more benefits and less costs.
Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez certainly want entrepreneurs and businesses to thrive in America. As Ocasio-Cortez says, democratic socialism simply means “putting democracy and society first,” rather than profit “above all else.”
IV.
Defining the terms of the debate
Politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders are good at defining the terms of the debate rather than ceding that to Republicans. Here’s an example of Ocasio-Cortez framing democratic socialism at a March 2019 conference.
“[W]hen we talk about ideas for example like democratic socialism, it means putting democracy and society first, instead of capital first.”
[O]n a day when several high-profile politicians such as Elizabeth Warren and Beto O’Rourke took the stage, the star was freshman congresswoman and instant Democratic Party phenomenon Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, otherwise known as AOC. Attendees tweeted of long lines and a full house, with some leaving the venue without being able to squeeze in.
...
Addressing the rising popularity of socialism, and the fearmongering that it will mean an end of individual rights, she used simple semantics to explain why she doesn’t believe in unmitigated capitalism...saying in part:
”Capitalism, to me, is an ideology of capital. The most important thing is the concentration of capital, and it means that we seek and prioritize profit and the accumulation of money above all else… But when we talk about ideas for example like democratic socialism, it means putting democracy and society first, instead of capital first.”
And here’s a bit of Sanders’s June 2019 speech on democratic socialism at George Washington University. Note how Sanders invokes the words of the prototypical heartland president, Harry Truman, to show how Republicans have called every popular program “socialism.”
“Donald Trump...believes in corporate socialism for the rich and powerful. I believe in a democratic socialism that works for the working families of this country.”
President Harry Truman was right when he said that: “Socialism is the epithet they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years…Socialism is what they called Social Security. Socialism is what they called farm price supports. Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance. 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.”
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They may hate democratic socialism because it benefits working people, but they absolutely love corporate socialism that enriches Trump and other billionaires.
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If you are the Walton family, the wealthiest family in America, you get massive government subsidies because your low wage workers are forced to rely on food stamps, Medicaid and public housing in order to survive — all paid for by taxpayers.
If you are the Trump family, you got $885 million worth of tax breaks and subsidies for your family’s housing empire that is built on racial discrimination.
When Trump screams socialism, all of his hypocrisy will not be lost on the American people. Americans will know that he is attacking all that we take for granted: from Social Security to Medicare to veterans health care to roads and bridges to public schools to national parks to clean water and clean air.
When Trump attacks socialism, I am reminded of what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “This country has socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the poor.”
And that is the difference between Donald Trump and me. He believes in corporate socialism for the rich and powerful.
I believe in a democratic socialism that works for the working families of this country.
V.
Let’s not be intimidated
It’s never easy to predict how vulnerable or how impervious our candidates or our opponents will be to attacks. In the 2004 presidential race, a highly intelligent, decorated Vietnam War vet, John Kerry, lost to one of the most inept incumbents in history, George W. Bush. In 2008, barely 7 years since Osama bin Laden had attacked America and 5 years since America had attacked Iraq and deposed Saddam Hussein, our nominee, improbably named Barack Hussein Obama, won in a landslide over war hero John McCain. In 2016, we lost 6 states we’d won in the previous cycle, running against a shockingly unqualified and repugnant GOP candidate who’d never held office, had denigrated John McCain — “I like people who don’t get captured” — and had bragged about his own propensity to assault women — “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything... Grab ‘em by the pussy.”
In my view, we should avoid fretting about our perceived vulnerabilities, and instead focus on our historic strengths. We have historically been the party that has people’s backs.
It seems to me that the straightest path to winning the presidency and more state and local elections is for the Democratic Party to capture more people’s attention and convince more people that we have their backs.
In 2016, all of the presidential candidates together captured barely 59% of the voting-eligible population; the Democratic ticket in 2016 received the votes of less than 29% of the voting-eligible population; the Republican ticket received even less. Over 94 million voting-eligible Americans — 4 out of every 10 folks eligible to vote — didn’t vote for president. Surely we can motivate more people to exercise their franchise.
It’s a great big country with plenty of voters and potential voters to pitch our case to.
I think Democrats can capture more people’s attention and we can convince more people that we have their backs. We can show people that we will not be cowed, we will not be intimidated, we will stand and fight for human rights and dignity.
My first-choice presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, is a longtime good example of this. His passion and his potential to spur on a vigorous progressive movement to counter this country’s conservative movement — combined with his long track record of accomplishment — are the reasons Sanders is my first choice.