Ok, just how damaging is the 'socialist' label, really?

[2ManyTacos]

I think the entirety of people’s reluctance to rally behind Bernie Sanders is the fact that he’s a self-described democratic socialist, and that that label will doom him in a general election. But the thing is, would it really?

I mean, I think that a world in which Donald f’n Trump is president broadly means that any major party candidate is electable. Sanders opponents frequently point to the epic loss of McGovern as proof that Sanders would get clobbered, but…most of the people who voted in that election are dead now, so does it actually portend anything?

Note that even I don’t have a clear take on the socialist question. The GOP undoubtedly has been crying wolf on “socialism” for 40 years - and they will call any 2020 Dem a socialist regardless of whether the nominee is Sanders - so there’s a decent chance that the term itself is mostly meaningless now. Still, Sanders’s embrace of the label could prove problematic. I really am just trying to work this question out.

[Socsback]

I think America can probably get past it at some point. Right now isn’t the best time for revolution… it’s time for stabilization. In hindsight, 2016 probably would have been a better time to give Bernie his shot.

To answer the question, yeah… the label is going to take a beating in 2020.

[Wesley_Clark]

Most people who are scared of it are already republicans, and the GOP have used labels like communist, socialist, liberal, etc as slurs for decades so most people have probably already made their minds up about it.

They called Obama a socialist, a communist and a nazi for 8 years, and he got about 70 million votes.

[QuickSilver]

I’m not worried about the Republicans who are afraid of democratic socialists. I’m worried about the Democrats and Independents who are ignorant about it.

[snowthx]

It’s a dog whistle for conservatives in their talk radio and news as something to be feared and reviled, and will mean giving up liberties and paying more taxes for social benefits for lazy layabouts and illegal aliens. It’s been that way since conservative talk radio and media began, so the label runs deep with the GOP and yes, it will be used as a cudgel in the election.

They are pointing to Venezuela as a failed socialist state - ignoring the fact that most of the problems there are due to corruption. They conveniently ignore successful socialist-style states.

[Velocity]

It’s even less impactful than calling Trump or Trumpers fascist. Not only has the GOP been crying wolf for decades, but we are long past the Cold War era and the label means nothing. Plus, young people have been considering Che Guavara and Che T-shirts chic ever since Che was a thing, for instance, so not only is “socialist” not bad, it’s actually hip and edgy for many.

[Corry_El]

@2ManyTacos

…self-described democratic socialist…

1. … Sanders opponents frequently point to the epic loss of McGovern as proof that Sanders would get clobbered…

2. Note that even I don’t have a clear take on the socialist question. The GOP undoubtedly has been crying wolf on “socialism” for 40 years - and they will call any 2020 Dem a socialist regardless of whether the nominee is Sanders - so there’s a decent chance that the term itself is mostly meaningless now.

1. I agree there. Nixon v McGovern shows that a Democratic presidential candidate too far to the left of where the general electorate is can be be badly beaten by an otherwise not so popular Republican incumbent. It doesn’t prove Sanders v Trump would fit the same template. And obviously nobody on either side is going to score an electoral college margin like Nixon '72 in 2020 (or Reagan v Mondale or even Bush I v Dukakis). More states now are a lock for one party or the other almost regardless of nominee.

2. As to the ‘cry wolf’ argument it’s a matter of perception how central the label ‘socialist’ has been to Republican campaigns up to recently. Sure, right leaning people on the internet and talk radio throw that label fairly often. But whether that’s been central to GOP presidential campaigns themselves is more debatable IMO. I mean to the point that persuadable people would tune it out wrt to a Democratic nominee who, as you stated upfront, calls himself a socialist. It’s not clear to me that would be such a minor problem. But there’s also Sanders’ policies themselves, whether enough people think they are really workable or constitute ‘overturning the apple cart’ and if so whether it’s a good time to do that.

The only real answer is “if Sanders is nominee, we’ll see”. But even so a Sanders loss wouldn’t prove the specific of question of how important the ‘socialist’ label itself was compared to the proposals separate from labels.

[Velocity]

@2ManyTacos

Sanders opponents frequently point to the epic loss of McGovern as proof that Sanders would get clobbered, but…most of the people who voted in that election are dead now, so does it actually portend anything?

It doesn’t. The 1970s were far less polarized than today. Today, both parties have an automatically baked-in floor of 40% no matter what. Even if Bernie ran the worst campaign a Democrat has ever run, he’d probably still get 200 electoral votes at the minimum.

That doesn’t stop people like Chris Matthews from predicting a 49-state loss, though.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@2ManyTacos

I think the entirety of people’s reluctance to rally behind Bernie Sanders is the fact that he’s a self-described democratic socialist, and that that label will doom him in a general election.

As someone who goes back and forth between supporting Sanders or Warren, I don’t think you’re capturing all the objections to Sanders here. He’s not famous for schmoozing, and that’s a pretty big part of getting things done in DC. He’s not always great at the fine points of plans. There are questions about whether his plans are financially sound. He’s a hedgehog, not a fox.

These are all legit concerns about him. I don’t agree with all of them, but I can respect folks who aren’t willing to back him based on these concerns.

[Velocity]

Bernie’s supporters may also play a role in dampening his chances of being elected. Bloomberg ran an ad on it.

[MaxTheVool]

Kind of depends whether the conversation focuses on current Bernie, where his socialism consists of universal health care, free college, and higher taxes on the rich; or past Bernie, where his socialism consists of, or at least can plausibly be focused on, apologia for the USSR, praise for Venezuela, etc.

[septimus]

@Velocity

That doesn’t stop people like Chris Matthews from predicting a 49-state loss, though.

I’m afraid Sanders will do poorly, but a 49-state loss seems absurd. I don’t watch much news; is Chris Matthews a moron?

Two or three of the top newsmen at CNN are utter idiots; how did news in the U.S.A. become so dismal? I mostly click to Aljazeera these days when I want news. The best American newsmen today seem to be the comedians Trevor Noah and Bill Maher. :smack:

[Lantern]

@2ManyTacos

Note that even I don’t have a clear take on the socialist question. The GOP undoubtedly has been crying wolf on “socialism” for 40 years - and they will call any. 2020 Dem a socialist regardless of whether the nominee is Sanders - so there’s a decent chance that the term itself is mostly meaningless now. Still, Sanders’s embrace of the label could prove problematic. I really am just trying to work this question out

It’s not true that Republicans would always call the Democrat a socialist. I don’t recall it being a major theme of Trump against Hillary. Perhaps he used the word some time but I don’t recall it in the debate or in a major attack ad and certainly it was not a major theme of his campaign.

In 2011/12 Romney explicitlysaid it would not be a good idea to label Obama a socialist.

Secondly the really important question is not whether the Republicans use the label but whether it sticks. They did sometimes call Obama a socialist but it never really stuck. With Bernie by contrast it is bound to stick since he proudly claims the label. And it will hurt him because the label is certainly unpopular. He will be constantly put on the defensive having to argue that socialism has been misunderstood and is really not that bad. It will just be a pointless deadweight on his campaign.

[SlackerInc]

Yes, it is absolutely a problem. As Gallup described in their “Bottom Line” on a poll released just this week, in which a majority of independents said they would not vote for an “otherwise well qualified” socialist:

Socialism and Atheism Still U.S. Political Liabilities

As the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries get underway, it may be instructive to know that little prejudice stands in the way of Democratic as well as national support for candidates who happen to be Catholic, Hispanic, Jewish or female. Being especially young or advanced in age could pose minor appeal problems.

Being gay or lesbian, Muslim, an atheist or a socialist wouldn’t cause much stir among Democrats, but these candidates could have difficulty attracting support from Republicans and, to a lesser extent, from political independents.

Bernie has problems with three of those: “advanced in age”, atheism, and socialism. And out of all the characteristics Gallup polled, “socialist” is the only one that has gotten MORE unpopular since it was last polled, in 2015. :smack:

But Bernie has not been just a Scandinavian style socialist for much of his career, even if that’s what he mostly talks about now (although as recently as 2011 he seemed fond of Venezuela’s form of socialism).

When Bernie Sanders Thought Castro and the Sandinistas Could Teach America a...

But despite its aversion to elections, brutal suppression of dissent, hideous mistreatment of indigenous Nicaraguans, and rejection of basic democratic norms, Sanders thought Managua’s Marxist-Leninist clique had much to teach Burlington: “Vermont could set an example to the rest of the nation similar to the type of example Nicaragua is setting for the rest of Latin America.”[…]

In 1985 Sanders traveled to New York City to meet with Ortega just weeks after Nicaragua imposed a “state of emergency” that resulted in mass arrests of regime critics and the shuttering of opposition newspapers and magazines. While liberal critics of Reagan’s Nicaraguan policy rounded on the Sandinistas (talk-show host Phil Donahue told Ortega that his actions looked “fascist”), Sanders refused to condemn the decision. He was “not an expert in Nicaragua” and “not a Nicaraguan,” he said during a press conference. “Am I aware enough of all the details of what is going on in Nicaragua to say ‘you have reacted too strongly?’ I don’t know…” But of course he did know, later saying that the Sandinistas’ brutal crackdown “makes sense to me.”

What “made sense” to Sanders was the Sandinistas’ war against La Prensa, a daily newspaper whose vigorous opposition to the Somoza dictatorship quickly transformed into vigorous opposition of the dictatorship that replaced it. When challenged on the Sandinistas’ incessant censorship, Sanders had a disturbing stock answer: Nicaragua was at war with counterrevolutionary forces, funded by the United States, and wartime occasionally necessitated undemocratic measures. (The Sandinista state censor Nelba Blandon offered a more succinct answer: “They [La Prensa] accused us of suppressing freedom of expression. This was a lie and we could not let them publish it.”)[…]

While Freedom House and Amnesty International agitated on behalf of La Prensa, Sanders was making excuses for the government that censored its articles, prevented it from buying newsprint, harassed its staffers, and arrested its journalists.[…]

When asked about the food shortages provoked by the Sandinistas’ voodoo economic policy, Sanders claimed that bread lines were a sign of a healthy economy, suggesting an equitable distribution of wealth: “It’s funny, sometimes American journalists talk about how bad a country is, that people are lining up for food. That is a good thing! In other countries people don’t line up for food: the rich get the food and the poor starve to death.”[…]

Through the Mayor’s Council on the Arts, Sanders tried to bring some revolutionary third-worldism to Vermont when he funded cable-access television that showed “films from Cuba [and] daily television fare from Nicaragua.” At a press conference, Sanders highlighted the grants that allowed the importation of “films produced in Nicaragua, that appear on Nicaraguan [state] television, on Channel 15. We have films from Cuba on Channel 15.”

Ah, yes, let us not forget the democratic socialist Shangri-La in Havana. In 1989 Sanders traveled to Cuba on a trip organized by the Center for Cuban Studies, a pro-Castro group based in New York, hoping to come away with a “balanced” picture of the communist dictatorship. The late, legendary Vermont journalist Peter Freyne sighed that Sanders “came back singing the praises of Fidel Castro.”

“I think there is tremendous ignorance in this country as to what is going on in Cuba,” Sanders told The Burlington Free Press before he left. It’s a country with “deficiencies,” he acknowledged, but one that has made “enormous progress” in “improving the lives of poor people and working people.” When he returned to Burlington, Sanders excitedly reported that Cuba had “solved some very important problems” like hunger and homelessness. “I did not see a hungry child. I did not see any homeless people,” he told the Free Press. “Cuba today not only has free healthcare but very high quality healthcare.”

Sanders had a hunch that Cubans actually appreciated living in a one-party state. “The people we met had an almost religious affection for [Fidel Castro]. The revolution there is far deep and more profound than I understood it to be. It really is a revolution in terms of values."

Mike Bloomberg needs to start running anti-Bernie ads highlighting this stuff ASAP. Republicans are sitting on all this, holding their collective breaths, hoping Bernie gets nominated–at which point they will start unleashing it. It needs to become known in a widespread way NOW, before it’s too late!

And yes: I do know the context of Latin American politics of the 1980s and Reagan’s illegal support of the contras and right wing death squads elsewhere in the region. My Marxist parents were active in the sanctuary movement. (I also know that when Ollie North appeared before Congress in his uniform, the country fell in love with him despite the blatantly illegal nature of his actions.)

I am arguing this on the politics, not on the merits (not entirely, anyway: I will say that I don’t want a Cuban-style government attempted here, even as I acknowledge that in Latin America, that was better than getting a typical corrupt pro-business banana republic type government.) I went to the USSR as a teenager with my grandfather in the early 1990s, just before it collapsed. I saw a lot to be admired in Gorbachev’s vision of socialism (although I was sad to see the young people I met there did not). But any candidate who represented my own political viewpoints frankly, I would vehemently oppose nominating. As Adlai Stevenson (perhaps apocryphally) is quoted as saying in response to a supporter declaring that “All thinking people are behind you”: “That’s not enough, we need a majority.”

[iiandyiiii]

I used to think that openly ignorant, openly hateful, openly incendiary, etc., was totally unacceptable to the American people. Obviously that was wrong. Praising authoritarians is fine, even – including praising communists.

I’m unconvinced that socialist will be worse than all these things, especially noting the last. Conservatives don’t seem to care that Trump has, on numerous occasions, praised authoritarians and communists. I’m skeptical that somehow identifying as a socialist will be much worse.

[Chad_Sudan]

I really don’t understand why Sanders calls himself a “democratic socialist” and not a “social democrat.”

Unless your program involves nationalizing the means of production, it’s simply a massive unforced error to call yourself a socialist.

[Ravenman]

I’m a liberal and I don’t like the policies that self-described socialists are proposing. There, I said it.

[Shodan]

@MaxTheVool

Kind of depends whether the conversation focuses on current Bernie, where his socialism consists of universal health care, free college, and higher taxes on the rich; or past Bernie, where his socialism consists of, or at least can plausibly be focused on, apologia for the USSR, praise for Venezuela, etc.

And the notion that child hunger in America is because we have too many different kinds of deodorant.

Part of the reason socialism is unpopular in the US is that it is a crackpot theory, and part is because it attracts crackpots who make it look even more crackpotty than it is.

The only thing worse for socialism in America than a Bernie nomination and loss, would be a Bernie nomination and a win. Bernie has achieved nothing in his quest to bring socialism to America during his thirty years as a Senator, thank God. He would achieve much less than that in four years as President.

Or, more probably, two years. As in, Bernie is elected, the markets crash, the economy tanks, we go into recession, the deficit balloons, no politician who wants to be re-elected considers anything Bernie proposes for a split-second, and the GOP takes the House back over, widens its lead in the Senate, and Bernie and the socialist movement get sent packing back to coffee houses and Berkeley where they belong. And that’s assuming Bernie doesn’t have another heart attack and Vice President Whoever He Picked is the one gibbering irrelevantly on the sidelines as the Dems lose everything in 2024.

Regards,
Shodan

[iiandyiiii]

@Shodan

Part of the reason socialism is unpopular in the US is that it is a crackpot theory, and part is because it attracts crackpots who make it look even more crackpotty than it is.

Is this why Canada is such a poverty stricken shithole-wasteland, with millions of desperate refugees clambering to cross our northern border to gain access to our precious non-socialist economy? Or why Denmark and Finland score so incredibly low on various statistical indicators of human development, health, and happiness?

I’m sorry that the consideration of emulating the systems of Canada and Denmark is so frightening to you. Hopefully the rest of America will look at the examples of those countries and consider the terrible price that socialism has wrought when evaluating whether to support a candidate that advocates similar policies.

Watch out! America might become a bit more like Canada! Terrifying!

[QuickSilver]

@Shodan

And the notion that child hunger in America is because we have too many different kinds of deodorant.

Part of the reason socialism is unpopular in the US is that it is a crackpot theory, and part is because it attracts crackpots who make it look even more crackpotty than it is.

The only thing worse for socialism in America than a Bernie nomination and loss, would be a Bernie nomination and a win. Bernie has achieved nothing in his quest to bring socialism to America during his thirty years as a Senator, thank God. He would achieve much less than that in four years as President.

Or, more probably, two years. As in, Bernie is elected, the markets crash, the economy tanks, we go into recession, the deficit balloons, no politician who wants to be re-elected considers anything Bernie proposes for a split-second, and the GOP takes the House back over, widens its lead in the Senate, and Bernie and the socialist movement get sent packing back to coffee houses and Berkeley where they belong. And that’s assuming Bernie doesn’t have another heart attack and Vice President Whoever He Picked is the one gibbering irrelevantly on the sidelines as the Dems lose everything in 2024.

Regards,
Shodan

Someone was saying something about the expected dramatic decline in support for Trump among conservative voters in the 2020 election?

Here’s a conservative poster who, for all his numerous faults, was not a Trump supporter (AFAIK). But I bet my hat he’ll tick the Trump box if Bernie is the nominee. There is no candidate like Bernie to galvanize the disenfranchised Republicans to hold their nose and vote for Trump.