Trying Something New

Spectator

It has become clear at least part of the Republican mid-term election strategy is to refer to self-described progressive Democrats, or self-described democratic socialists, as communists. The alleged communists have recently unseated incumbent Democratic members of Congress in primary elections in New York, Washington, D.C., Seattle, and Denver. It’s not a huge gain by their movement but, buoyed by young, disaffected voters and angry traditional liberals, they are making progress.

What do they want? Actually, the platform of some is so radical there is little chance of it expanding anywhere beyond their very safe bright blue congressional districts. Some advocate no police, no ICE, no borders, free housing, free mass transit, Medicare for all, and a guaranteed income. Some might argue the abandonment of common sense is the biggest plank in their platform. But those ideas, radical as they seem, were supported by a majority of their Democratic primary voters.

The political philosophy of democratic socialists doesn’t actually fit into any known -ism other than nihilism, and it almost guarantees anarchy. What it most assuredly is not is communism. Have you noticed, for example, neither North Korea nor China have abandoned police or their borders? In fact, one could make a stronger argument that communism is a virtual police state with surveillance everywhere and aggressively protected borders.

Communism is supposed to be a classless, stateless society in which resources and production are controlled by the collective state. There is no private property and no accumulation of wealth. The state will determine what businesses can operate and succeed and in which you will work. There will be no freedom of much of anything since the power of the state is absolute. The old Marxist maxim, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need,” looked great on paper and in theory but in reality has always become a top-down oligarchy: “From each according to his ability, to each according to the needs of those in control in the Central Committee.”

Socialism isn’t much better with collective ownership and production and state control of everything else, including the media.

We like to point to Scandinavian countries as examples of how social democracy works, but they aren’t quite as purely socialist as we think. For example, according to GlobalEconomy.com, nearly 75 percent of Sweden’s gross domestic product (GDP) is generated by their private sector, not the state. The elaborate social welfare programs they enjoy—free education at every level, free healthcare, long maternity and paternity leaves with job guarantees upon return, weeks of paid vacation and so on—are paid for by a nearly 50 percent tax that accelerates for those in the highest income brackets. That was a decision not imposed by a government greedy for power but by a vote of the public.

Our democratic socialists are not communists or socialists. They’ve made no entreaties about absolute control of the media or means of production or taking over everybody’s private property. They haven’t said they should decide where we work and live or where we can travel. They have not proposed doing away with the Constitution and replacing it with some kind of Marxist manifesto.

Some of what they claim to support—the free everything paid for by somebody else—has a hint of socialism in it, but we already have that. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, WIC, and everything Traverse City likes to subsidize are all programs with at least a foot inside socialism, as money is being taken from the many to benefit fewer.

While these newly minted candidates, and all of them are likely to be elected in November given the party breakdowns in their districts, aren’t easily identifiable with any traditional -ism, their philosophy isn’t likely to spread much farther. Those countries with ineffective or non-existent law enforcement quickly devolve into violent anarchy. Somalia, DR Congo, and Myanmar are just three current examples of nearly lawless countries. And even our liberal Scandinavian friends are pretty strict about their borders, as only island countries have no land borders.

Democrats are nominating some candidates with limited rather than broad appeal. We saw this with the reliably progressive Graham Platner in Maine who was a damaged candidate from the start but with a real chance against a weak incumbent Republican opponent in Susan Collins. As the accusations against Platner mounted, and there were plenty, the Dems did nothing and then more nothing until they formed one of their favorite things: the political circular firing squad. Platner was forced to drop out incredibly late, giving new progressive candidates virtually no time to establish themselves or a campaign.

The Democrats claiming to be democratic socialists are having a kind of political dawn with voters so sick of business-as-usual politicians they’re willing to try something completely new. It’s not clear this movement will last even until dusk.

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