Is America ready for a Socialist candidate?

At the current moment, Joe Biden is tanking in the polls and behind both Bernie Sanders and Buttigieg in the race for Democratic candidacy. With Sanders surging in the polls and a lot of young people wanting desperately to get rid of Trump, it begs the question, is America ready for some of the socially democratic policies that other countries such as Canada and Denmark take for granting.

Or, is the ideological hurdle just to tall to jump for a country built on individualism and the myth of social mobility?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/despi...sm-is-gaining-a-foothold-in-america-1.5118810

Many polls suggest Americans, especially young people and women, overwhelmingly favor social democratic policies such as universal, single payer health care and better access to higher education.

https://www.americanprogress.org/is...ns/reports/2019/12/05/478144/america-decides/

 

Bernie wouldn't be the first Socialist candidate. In fact, if elected, he wouldn't be the first socialist President.

FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, ... they all championed many socialist policies. During the period in which the U.S. became the most powerful nation in the world the President in the White House was not a stranger to socialism at all.

In fact, the text of our Constitution and our Declaration of Independence are two of the great inspirations of today's Democratic Socialist movements all over the world.

 

No.

Thank God.

 

Socialism (freedom from liberty) is something that we should provide to small children as we train them to assume authority over and responsibility for themselves. No one becomes a socialist. Everyone's a socialist until they grow up and earn their own money. There may be a point in time when one realizes that they are a socialist, but no one becomes a socialist.

Socialism among those of age is an immaturity. It is a 'Peter Pan Syndrome'. It is a desire to remain in the socialism of youth that emanates from a deep seated fear liberty. The 'Lost Boys' of socialism equate others having authority over themselves with chaos, and they equate them having responsibility for themselves with oppression. They have precious little tolerance for what others do, or don't do, with their lives, liberty and property. They are right about one thing though - liberty is scary; that's why it has been so rarely assumed.

It is easy to forget that, until 1776, almost everyone who ever lived was owned by someone else. Things like liberty and private property are founded upon self-possession. Self-possession is the idea that each person owns them self. When the idea of self-possession first entered public discourse, in Europe, it was mocked as "everyone is a king thinking", and the old adage, "every man's home is his castle", was originally a punchline to a joke at the expense of self-possession. So, the question becomes who owns whom? Are we going to continue to be a nation of self-possessed individuals? Are we going to continue to prioritize the protection and defense of individual life, liberty and property before the general welfare? All of the other answers come easily if you can just answer the first, and most important, question.
Who owns you?

 

Don't know. I am ready for one. Second question: is this the time to take the risk that we are not? That's even tougher, because we appear to need to take a risk of some sort as the lack of risk, did so poorly last time. Its counter intuitive but a typical establishment candidate may be the riskiest play available.

Soooo, which sort of risk, is the most manageable?

Don't know.

 

Who owns you?

 

Nobody

 

It's almost impossible to imagine now, but most of what we today would consider slavery has historically been voluntary.
Put it this way, there have been far more of what we today would consider slaves than employees. Employees came after coinage, and money is a pretty new thing. It was not uncommon to celebrate getting on with a good household. In the levant people would pierce their ear against the doorpost of their new masters house, leaving their stain as signature.

Most of the people who have been slaves throughout history at least remained so because they simply could not think of anything better. I don't want to be owned by the family, the tribe, the city state, the nation state or anyone other group or individual be me. Choosing to be socialist is just another form of voluntary slavery; it's just selling oneself to a group rather than an individual.

When I consider the masses of people who have effectively sold themselves into slavery by choosing to be socialist, it helps me understand that voluntary slavery is a historical norm, like abortion and war.

 

I own myself. Liberty and private property extend from one's ownership of them self.

 

I'm ready for the free stuff and have a message for the middle class:

You guys are gonna have to work extra hard for me though, OK?
Don't stress when you have to pull extra hours to make what you used to make due to only taking home 10% of your paycheck because it will be worth it.
When I'm rolling out of bed at 10AM trying to figure out the name of the random woman in my bed, and casually go make myself a coffee, I will be thinking of you and all your hard work and be very grateful.
Oh wait! One of these random women randomly got pregnant. Not my fault! With all this free time on YOUR dime, of course there is gonna be more sex then usual. Don't sweat it though, I'll just have our wonderful socialist government take more out of your check to give to me. Hell if its enough, maybe i'll get the kid some $100+ dollar baby air jordans. He/she will learn to love YOUR money as well, I promise!
Well I'm off to take a walk in the park and enjoy the outdoors. Thanks so much for being at work today so I can enjoy this lovely weather doing whatever I feel like, ON YOUR DIME. Thank you middle tax class payer.

 

Your welcome.

And...does she have a sister?

 

This country already decided that the right to one private property is conditional. That is why there is a power of eminent domaine

 

America already has many programs and policies one can call socialist. Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, FDIC, EPA, Medicare, Medicaid, Homeland Security, and free education through grade twelve. Liberal Democracies historically move toward more inclusiveness and socialism. As Golem rightly observed, this has been a United States trend for decades.

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are radical in that they each propose social changes well outside historical norms. Americans are willing to accept socialistic changes, like single payer medical insurance, but at a controlled rate the support economic prosperity and growth, not stifle it. Free college for all, forgiveness of college debt, and Medicare for all are beyond that which most people favor today.

 

And the people were better off under those presidents. The right side has always conflated an expanded Commons with socialism. Yet our econony has always been capitalism And it would be capitalism under sanders. But some on the right will lie about that. They despise the Commons . Everything should be driven by the profit motive.

 

The only socialism our constitution allows for the federal government to engage in is defense.

 

I voted yes, but with some hefty caveats.

We are technically a State Capitalism ever since the bank and auto bailouts. Thats really a distinction without a difference from Socialism.

Americans are not so vehemently opposed to Socialism as they are the open borders, gun control, PCism and general globalism that is rhetoricized to accompany it.

Try pushing Socialism while respecting the 1st and 2nd Amendmends and 'America First' Civic Nationalism and see how popular it is. Im not saying it'll work, but there will certainly be less opposition.

 

Everything that the Constitution allows the federal government to engage in is socialist. Social welfare is one of the main purpose of the Constitution. Along with social liberty and social "defence" (sic)

 

Agreed. People forget that there was once a strong labour union movement that fought some of the bloodiest labour wars in the world. Also a thriving socialist party as well as the wobblies. Then the red scare and persecution and paranoia.

I don't think FDR started out as a socialist, the Eleanor was always a progressive, but he was forced by economic conditions and I would argue the policies he put in place and leadership during crisis make him the greatest president the US has ever had. I am researching Henry Wallace for a project I'm working on and he would have been president after FDR if not for the intervention of the Democratic party bosses. The world would likely be a much different place if Wallace had been on the ticket in '44 - he had 65% support among delegates and was wildly popular - not just in America but abroad as well.

I know people forget that Nixon brought in a National Environment Policy and created the EPA as well as detente with Russia and relations with China.

The greatest era of prosperity the US and perhaps the world has ever known was brought in through socialist ideas after the war. Then it all started to be dismantled in the late 70's and 80's.

And here we are with wild levels of inequality and a divided nation.

 

Where is socialism described or defined as "freedom from liberty?" No offence but that just sounds like jingoism. Not everybody - especially the very wealthy grows up and earns their own living. Over 40% of wealth is inherited and much of that is sheltered in offshore accounts and the stock market - so it gives nothing back to the economy and creates zero new wealth for the nation:



People do become socialists. Democratic social policy is a choice.

Again with the liberty jingoism? Socialism actually proposes the idea that workers can have greater control over the fruits of their own labour and control over the means of production - which as an antiquated term but captures the meaning of socialism well. This is in tension with the idea that capital should have all control over means of production and siphon off the wealth in terms of excess production that workers create.

Liberty is just a catchword Americans have learned to say when this subject comes up with very little meaning in the real world.

Slavery existed long after 1776 in the United States and Jim Crow laws and segregation existed long after that. After the revolutionary war only white, male landowners had the vote and the nation was built on speculation of Indian land beyond the borders of the original colonies. So the liberty and individual life stuff only applies to a limited section of the population and that continues today though there is the facade of a functioning democracy.

The rest of your post brings up an interesting question about ownership of land and resources.

I would argue the question should be not who owns you but who protects and enforces your property rights and what are you willing to pay to have those rights protected and enforced?

 

Good post. I'm off to look at some poll numbers to see if forgiveness of debt and free medicare.

I'll post the results

I certainly agree that for a certain segment of the population, the "free stuff" crowd, these things amount to totalitarianism.

 

Depends a lot on how the economy goes and how bad the deficit is, I would imagine.

Trump is feeding off a good economy. If that changes I think radical chance is in the air - especially among the young.

 

Under socialism the government does.

 

Then why the social programs that were created during the depression? Are you saying these were illegal under the constitution?

 

Hoo boy if only you knew who was a socialist, you wouldnt say that

 

Liberty is the individual's authority over and responsibility for them self. Socialism offers freedom from liberty.