I agree with @Kimstu in that I think you’re extrapolating from the painfully few to the many.
What I see – and it is inarguably how my beloved family member came to her position – is the constant invocation of the very broad term, “socialism” as pure demagoguery and McCarthyism.
If I asked my kin to delineate between (notice my adoption of the correct term) social democracy and Castro-style socialism, she wouldn’t have a clue. She’s also joined the crowd that throws “Marxism” in there for good measure now – again – not having any idea what the words mean.
The current Top Marginal Tax Rate is, what – 37% ? And that kicks in at an AGI of over half a million dollars ?
Ignoring for the moment that well over half (usually 2/3rds) of Americans support higher taxes on the wealthy … to many Trump supporters … merely considering raising that top marginal rate to – say – 38% is socialist.
Trump said the US “will never be a socialist country.”
I don’t doubt that there’s a huge messaging problem on the left, but – as it is in so many regards – it’s a failure to find digestible, effective, simplistic truths that can overwhelm the fire hose of fiction that comes from the right.
Remember: the country was overwhelmingly in favor of each and every component of the AHCA, in polls, until – that is – they were asked their opinion of “Obamacare.”
The ‘socialism’ vs. social democracy thing is best exemplified by that classic Tea party picket sign: Government, keep your hands off my Medicare.
I know that it’s a slight typo, but the vision of the “vegetable isle” just tickles me. I’m assuming that’s where Veggie Tales happens - an island of nothing but anthropomorphic vegetables. Island of lost souls; Skull Island, and now Vegetable Isle.
I just thought I’d mention that Democratic Socialists (who claimed to believe in bringing down capitalism and replacing it with socialism) have occasionally been in power in Australia, but they weren’t ‘hard’ – they didn’t see a way clear to actually enforcing their party policy of bringing down capitalism and replacing it with socialism.
More recently – within my memory – the party removed socialism from their platform, in order to make themselves more attractive to the general electorate, but there is still a socialist faction within the party.
And also, “Democratic Socialists” don’t all have the aim of implementing worker control. That’s a syndicalist position, and it’s not a majority position within any democratic socialist party or faction that I’m aware of.
So, just “who believe in bringing down capitalism” and replacing it with socialism. Not hard or syndicalist. Unless you believe any socialist is a “hard” socialist, which is not a helpful distinction.
This article is from 2016, but I think it still may best capture Trump’s special and unique appeal – a big chunk of his voters wanted chaos and cruelty. Either the portion of the electorate that wanted chaos and cruelty expanded, or there was a chunk of millions that wanted chaos and cruelty but didn’t vote in 2016, perhaps because they weren’t convinced that Trump would deliver sufficient chaos and cruelty.
Socialism isn’t popular with Americans as a whole, but within the Democratic party the majority prefer socialism to capitalism (50%-46%). Only 7% of Republicans and 23% of independents agree.
Yeah, I can Google too. Now how exactly is it racist?
I’ll remind you,
{…} It’s condescending and kind of racist. Hispanic people from different regions have rich and varied backgrounds just like everyone else, and they shouldn’t be lumped together under one label like that. {…}
What part of that Wikivomit addresses the above?
Your initial claim was: “This is a serious messaging problem Democrats have. Within their ranks are maybe 10-20% hard socialists who think the Venezuela/Cuba model is fine if only the right people tried it.”
You were asked for a cite for the claim that within the ranks of Democrats are 10-20% hard socialists who think Venezuela/Cuba model is fine.
May I also point out that what exists in Cuba is in no way Democratic Socialism. It’s outright communist dictatorship. And I have not seen either Canada or Britain sliding into communism for having had UHC.
I mean, what, we’re disqualifying regimes and parties where leftist policies actually benefit the people from being referred to as “socialist”, just because? Anyway saying Socialism = Cuba is like saying the Tories = Fascism. It’s just using snarl words.
“Latino” and “Hispanic” are (in many contexts) basically interchangeable words. They’re umbrella terms that encompass the same, diverse panoplies of people
(Most academics prefer “Latino,” and the word or its equivalents is used in Spanish in most of Latin America, whereas the Spanish word “Hispano” is rare, mainly confined to certain US-based cultures).
So when you say “Hispanic peoples shouldn’t be lumped together,” that’s hilarious, because the word “Hispanic” lumps peoples together exactly as much as “Latino” does — no more, no less.
The only problem with “Latino” is that, to Spanish speakers, it happens to emphasize the male half of those populations, because the neutral, default suffix for Spanish adjectives is the masculine form.
Hence the recent neologism -x. Nothing whatsoever to with lumping.
ETA: It occurs to me that you might be asserting that “Latino” implicitly excludes the indigenous peoples of the Americas, because they speak languages not derived from Latin? No, that can’t be it, because “Hispanic” implies “from Spain.”
So, I got nuthin’.
Brazilians are Latino but not Hispanic — could that be it? No…
No idea what you’re after, but I look forward to finding out!)
Sam, as Euphonious_Polemic noted above, you didn’t actually answer my question about what evidence you have to support your claim in post #358 that “maybe 10-20%” of Democrats are “hard socialists who think the Venezuela/Cuba model is fine if only the right people tried it”.
Your feeble attempt at a non-crickets comeback in post #366 didn’t accomplish anything except to corroborate that Democrats as a group are much less antagonistic to the term “socialism” than Independents or Republicans, which my previous response to you (post #359) had already pointed out.
I have never met one, and I am a lifetime dem and I have worked quite a bit with them in the past, actually being nominated for office, etc. Now I have met a good number that say the Nordic Model of Democratic socialism is a great idea. And I think that may be a good point.