In the year since Trump’s reelection, there has been an outpouring of commentary on the confused state of the Democrats but also the disarray of the political left more broadly.
From Maine to… are searching for leverage against local Republican machines that have grown overconfident and nakedly indifferent to the public interest.” What?
At the local level, please tell me what Republican machine you are talking about. I am not familiar with any. The article, linked, is behind the pay wall.
Maine state government is completely controlled by the democrat party. In the Maine Senate, of the 35 seats, Republicans hold 14. In the House of Representatives, of the 151 seats, Republicans hold 73 seats. The democrat governor is in her second term. Nationally, of the 4 federal elected officials, 1 is a republican.
Maine has just recently become a sanctuary state, the legislature has passed late term abortions up until the day before delivery, boys are legally permitted in girls sports and locker rooms, is ranked low in the business friendly ratings, and at the high end of tax burden.
The neighboring state of New Hampshire, with low taxes and regulations, has steadily increased its average household income to be now about twice as high as Maine. It has decreased its average household poverty rate to have about half as many people in poverty as Maine. Maine is a poor state as a result of policy choices, by the elected officials.
Would be willing to bet big, 40% of Americans did not have a favorable view of Socialism, way back in 2019. In Biden's 4 years, housing soared 50% or more. Trillions of tax payer dollars were flushed chasing Green fantasies, scientifically one step above the magic beans, in Jack and the Beanstalk. Americans began to think the American dream was no longer obtainable .
Oddly enough Biden's 10-12 million mostly impoverished and sparsely educated migrants, ironically mostly fleeing Socialism, are far more optimistic. Perhaps because, under Biden, the US government appeared far more concerned with their welfare, than that of American citizens.
In CA, Dems are currently screaming it is unfair to charge those dwelling illegally in the state $30 a month in healthcare premiums. (That is not a misprint. Health insurance that costs Americans $1000 a month if they are lucky, will now cost CA migrants who illegally entered the US, $30 a month. It was entirely free before.) Yet, not a single Dem has expressed concern at handing illegal migrants $30 a month healthcare, while the US government shut down for a month, over a lack of healthcare affordability for American citizens.
Ultimately the Dem best hope is a fast fall, with a decent bounce. New Yorkers expecting rent control and free childcare are going to be very disappointed, if they are implemented or not. Neither option will produce more housing units. What could possibly go wrong handing a 6 week old baby to the same people who designed and manage the DMV and the foster care system? Meanwhile, Seattle is likely to be even worse.
From sea to shining sea, Dems have mistaken disgust with Trump, for voters seeking Socialism. Biden's failed policies where a toe in the Socialism pool. By the end of his term, Americans were enduring early Venezuelan like results. It is far more likely to benefit Reps rather than Dems , when broadened Socialist programs, send the situation, from bad to worse.
A lot of it is our educational system. My gen z kids were all taught about capitalism based on its shortcomings and socialism based on its ideals. They got a different perspective from me at home because I made a point of discussing what they were learning and engaging in debate with them about it. We also pushed the kids to get summer jobs and make their own money to pay for things they wanted. 2 out of three are very libertarian leaning. The other one is more amenable to government welfare but would still consider herself capitalist not socialist.
Sorry, but any foothold socialism has gained in American politics says less if anything about its virtues-- current or historic -- and everything about the mounting failures of our once most cherished and trusted institutions; cultural, educational, political and yes, informational.
Yes, two things may be true at once, but not where sociakism, properly undetstood, is concerned.
Any green shoots of a post-woke Left are immediately stomped on by the Wokesters who control the Democratic nominating processes almost everywhere in America. No doubt in private many Democratic activists and aspiring candidates lament the woke/DEI craziness, but they won't say so out loud: their professional or electoral careers will end if they do so. The best hope for Democrats is that the Trump Party keeps avoiding serious issues (e.g. the looming shortfalls in Social Security and Medicare and huge increases in health insurance premiums), that Trump's Fed nominations result in high inflation, and that Trump keeps alienating persuadable voters with his repulsive personality (e.g. his appalling comments after the murders of Rob Reiner and his wife).
Yes, Trump is repulsive, but that doesn't mean I'm going to vote for an anti-Semite socialist/ communist who will reactivate the censorship industrial complex and reopen the borders. As far as I know, Dems haven't proposed any concrete policies about affordability, the debt, or increasing housing. Social Security and Medicare issues are radioactive, Dems would be on any Republican who even broached addressing the hard choices that will need to be made like white on rice. Instead they are insisting on adding Obamacare as a permanent entitlement. What's a voter to do?
What's a voter to do? Great question for which I have no answer. A strong general election candidate would level with voters and tell them that both tax increases of some types and spending reforms are needed - tradeoffs can't be avoided forever. A moderate Democrat would actually dial back the extremes of DEI, transgenderism, and open borders immigration. A moderate Republican would say - like Mitt Romney did recently - that some people will have to pay higher taxes because we can't keep borrowing into infinity. But more moderate types can't get nominated in either major party these days.
Which increase in taxes are we talking about. The rich? Has that ever been proven to solve any problems.
It always about expenses. And whether right or wrong, DOGE was a success to the lower ranks. All those poor over paid and under worked fed employees fired. Whole sections of the executive branch closed down as opposed to the bloat the Dems and biden added?
Is any one ready for what Trump will be able to do, and will, if the government wins Trump v. Slaughter? In the scheme things, the midterms become irrelevant. The Dems could win control of the House and senate, not being able to do anything with a veto proof majority, and Trump marches on with his EOs. Who looks even weaker and feckless then?
The biggest problem politicians have is just looking to the next election, no further. Instead of playing the long game. Pass small but but effective bills continuously to show they can govern. like the Muslims who have a hundred year plan for us and the world. Look around the world. How is that plan working out for Islam?
Agree, each year the government collects more money than the year before. Maybe if Dems had gotten on board with some of the DOGE efforts and not fought tooth and nail to give billions to their cronies...people know that most of the money doesn't filter down to the middle class.
The massive welfare fraud uncovered in MN and potentially going on in other states should put a nail in the coffin of any discussion on raising taxes. When we’re shoveling likely billions of dollars into the hands of fraudsters with zero accountability I’ll take a hard pass on giving the government any more of my tax dollars. Put some serious reforms in place including making the public charge rule mean something along with mechanisms to show tangible results and we can the look at the other side of the ledger.
Only appalling if you have not paid attention to the wacko monster Reiner became. The savvy voter knows what those statements and beliefs were, but do not express them in public.
Rob Reiner demeaned himself with his many unhinged comments about Trump. Nevertheless, Trump demeaned himself even more by how he commented on these parricides (child murdering of parents). Trump should have just expressed sadness over this tragedy, how mental illness strikes in many families, as in his older brother's alcoholism. The full-time Trump haters would have given him no credit for his humanity, but a huge majority of Americans would have.
"Yet nearly forty percent of Americans hold a favorable view of socialism"
Was socialism defined or the respondents queried as to what their belief of socialism is prior to the "do you believe question"? If not, the 40% can not be used as a valid gauge of socialism support in this country.
Know your enemy.
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
"that regardless of what Trumpism is exactly, its mixture of cronyism, buffoonery, and malevolence is not to be minimized"
I would suggest the correct problem that needs to challenged is that the above three, are far seen far different by those who voted for Trump. Could Dems actually get rid of their currently proven dooming worldview?
Cronyism is actually the hiring and using of highly skilled experts with a lot experience in their selected fields of work.
buffoonery: actually, carefully calculated actions and words meant to elicit extreme reactions form the left. As we see, it works. Almost every time.
malevolence; actually is truth that is CW by the voters, who voted for Trump, and that truth points to what needs to be resolved rather than feelings that the left uses to guide it's ineffective actions upon.
Polls drive actions, well, and anything anti Trump. What concrete actions are the Dems even considering to show they can govern effectively.? Pack the SCOTUS? Follow the example of CA. Billions in debt and citizens leaving by the score? Illegal license given to non English speaking or reading illegals to drive semis? And kill American citizens? How many have currently be killed is irrelevant, because as the masses know, it can only get worse if not corrected. Or, the non assimilating minorities who have scammed the electorate out of billions of dollars? Do you really want Walz to defend that situation? If they don't want to assimilate, deport them.
If your basic premises are misstated or construed, you can't be a big time winner by hoping the other side fails. Anyone consider if the Trump claims about massive income tax returns prove true next year, right before a mid term, can you deal with that? As a senior, I already have been give $14 to $16 thousand dollars in added deductions biden never gave me and AARP never spoke about either. So many important issues to address, so little time.
I have noticed that a significant aspect of most debates about 'socialism' I have seen in public and private discourse is the lack of rigor in defining it, whether from the left or the right.
A lot of 'democratic socialists', when asked for an example of the 'socialism' they are referring to, point to the Nordic states. Which are liberal market economies marked by private ownership of the means of production paired with robust and very well-run welfare states funded by high tax rates, and a liberal-democratic system of government.
Then the rightwardly-inclined folk, when asked to point to an instance of the 'socialism' *they* are referring to, point to the USSR and the Communist bloc. Which roughly means 'command economies marked by government ownership of the means of production and a lack of liberal markets, plus authoritarian or totalitarian governments.'
And the thing is, even *historically* speaking, socialism has been used to refer to a range of socioeconomic systems and visions. (The society advocated for by Blumhardt & Göhre's 'League of Religious Socialists' and the one advocated for by the 'United Soviet Socialist Republics' were totally different) It's just not a useful word when put into a political debate unless all parties to the conversation understand the history behind it and the heterogeneity of what it has referred to over that history. And most parties to these political debates over it do not.
As always in a Vassallo essay there is a lot there, I mean a little longer and you've got a danged book!
My attempt to choose the most crucial phrase of the whole thing came to this....**"it is because Trump has plainly not mitigated the affordability crisis and probably won’t or can’t, based on the policies and narrow business interests he is in thrall to."** People call it many things. Inflation, The Economy, affordability, whatever, it boils down to one thing, people don't have enough money to do the things they want to do or the things they have to do.
Trump's tariffs and closing the border to illegal immigration has earned the ire of Libertarians, especially in the corner offices. Lower Incomes need to rise fifteen or twenty percent for people to really feel richer. All of the tax stuff won't do it, low income workers don't pay income tax. Lower wage workers have actually lost income against a fairly low inflation rate.
A tripling of the min wage is what's needed but the Chamber of Commerce and Cato would be the ones buying pitchforks. I've got a long list of things Trump does that piss me off, but I'm still waiting for a better plan from my party. Interesting times.
One piece of this that I can’t get my head wrapped around is that the left is evidently “admiring of China’s progress while constantly disputing our own”??? China exemplifies all of the hyperbolic rhetoric the left launches a Trump and is actively engaged in genocide against a Moslem minority population that the left falsely accuses Israel of. So I’d love to know exactly what “progress” the left believes China is making?
There are aspects of the Chinese model that you can appreciate while still disapproving of its authoritarian characteristics. The Chinese state has nurtured a powerful industrial base, achieved broad-based economic growth, and attended to the general well-being of the average Chinese citizen, all while preventing the rise of an independent oligarchy that controls its economy, and slowly surpassing the U.S. in terms of geopolitical influence--and it has done it all without engaging in warfare. (Unfortunately that may not last given its aims for Taiwan)
Also, the Chinese model is nothing like Trumpism, which is volatile, irrational and corrupt. Nor is it run like a petty fiefdom like North Korea. Its bureaucracy, while definitely authoritarian, is highly rational in its organization and highly meritocratic in nature--in order to ascend in the ranks you not only have to take extremely rigorous examinations, but have a portfolio of demonstrated success at state management. Princelings can't buy a place in the upper echelon with campaign donations and bribes--among the country's leaders you find very few people who got to where they are by being the son of someone important, or just by being rich.
All that being said, it is definitely not a liberal system and as a liberal Westerner and American I could never live under it. But that's the thing--it's a system that emerges from a totally different cultural heritage than the West's. Its character makes a lot more sense when you look at how the Chinese Imperial system (which lasted thousands of years and led the world technologically right up until the industrial age) worked, and the disastrous results of China's attempt at Western-style liberal democracy. (See: the Warlord Era) Mainland China never really figured out how to make liberal democracy fit. (Taiwan did, though)
All while destroying the environment and using both real and de facto slave labor. Nothing points out the rank hypocrisy and projection coming from the modern left quite as clearly as their embrace of China.
I’m only speaking for myself, I don’t know who exactly you mean when you say ‘modern left’, but more importantly, can you point to anywhere I said I ‘embrace’ the illiberal aspects of the Chinese system?
Let me ask you this, too: do you appreciate the historical creation of American democracy? If so, does that then mean you embrace slavery, too, since it was a key part of the structure of American democracy?
Or does the statement "the vikings of the eighth century had a rather remarkably well-managed communal form-of-governance and were pretty technologically advanced for their time" imply the statement "the bloody raids conducted by the vikings were excellent and morally righteous"? I don't see how.
Again, you want to oversimplify this. But the truth is multifaceted and large complex systems can simultaneously have good and bad characteristics at the same time.
I judge 18th Century societies by 18th Century mores. Same for the Vikings where their practices were fully consistent with the mores of their time.
In the 21st century slavery is rightly understood to be an anathema and any government that practices it now should be roundly condemned and shunned not admired or praised.
Ok, so let’s pick a modern example—is it an endorsement of Nazism to argue that the German model of industrial development has been superior to those practiced by other Western European countries for the past two centuries?
Except that the Nazis were fortunately only 15 or so years out of the past two centuries. I was attempting to avoid Godwin’s Law but had considered the following:
There is a huge difference between saying you admire the autobahn and VW and saying you admire the Nazi’s because of the autobahn and VW.
It’s also worth pointing out that much of China’s economic success comes directly from from their willingness to trash the environment, and their willingness to use both real and de facto slave labor.
Years of GDP growth close to 10%. I lived a day's travel outside Kunming a city the size of greater Houston, they were delivering coal to heat and cook in donkey carts. Only cars were the rare army cars, or trucks, big empty wide boulevards full of bikes. I think the ten story Holiday Inn was the largest building in town.
I went months without seeing a contrail in the sky, we were in the shadow of the Himalayas. Nine years later the entire city is a traffic jam of cars, twenty or thirty high rises built or under construction. I haven't been back in a couple of decades. Today the second largest economy in the world.
Wages in Xiaguan were $10 a month for factory work, no dorms, no food. Today they pay $700.
Implementing the kind of cradle to grave welfare system the self described “socialists” on the left are calling for requires the kind of restrictionist immigration system that would make even Stephen Miller blush. It also requires raising taxes on the middle class as much as the wealthy. Both of which are pretty much non-starters with most Americans.
I voted straight ticket Democrat in every election, but this election I’m voting Republican in every a lot where the opponent is a progressive. Nothing else will send the message that the Democratic Party needs to deal with the utter stupidity and maliciousness of its progressives.
IMO the public and the media conflate "socialism" with a "welfare state".
Socialism means that productive assets of all kinds are owned by the public at large (meaning the government, aka "the people"). Thus everyone in a socialist state works for the "government".
In a welfare state, the public surrenders the right to keep a significant share of their wages/income either directly via income taxation or indirectly via high consumption taxes. In return they get a stable economic safety net that prevents dire poverty throughout their lives and insures a modicum of health care and retirement income. In a welfare state, the means of production are owned by capitalists. Owners of private companies and all workers regardless of employer pay high taxes to fund the welfare state.
There is a world of difference. Successful welfare states exist. People can make a collective decision to forego individual private consumption to pay for collective insurance against individual economic failure. Residents of welfare states live economically smaller but more secure lives. This is a trade-off that rational people can make. All successful welfare states are found in "first world" countries that have amassed sufficient physical and human capital to sustain high living standards.
Socialist countries consistently fail economically at first and ultimately, politically: USSR, Venezuela, Cuba, Korea, Poland, Hungary, Rumania, East Germany, etc. The consistent failures of socialist economies are dismissed by socialists as a failure to implement "true socialism".....which is not defined.
From Maine to… are searching for leverage against local Republican machines that have grown overconfident and nakedly indifferent to the public interest.” What?
At the local level, please tell me what Republican machine you are talking about. I am not familiar with any. The article, linked, is behind the pay wall.
Maine state government is completely controlled by the democrat party. In the Maine Senate, of the 35 seats, Republicans hold 14. In the House of Representatives, of the 151 seats, Republicans hold 73 seats. The democrat governor is in her second term. Nationally, of the 4 federal elected officials, 1 is a republican.
Maine has just recently become a sanctuary state, the legislature has passed late term abortions up until the day before delivery, boys are legally permitted in girls sports and locker rooms, is ranked low in the business friendly ratings, and at the high end of tax burden.
The neighboring state of New Hampshire, with low taxes and regulations, has steadily increased its average household income to be now about twice as high as Maine. It has decreased its average household poverty rate to have about half as many people in poverty as Maine. Maine is a poor state as a result of policy choices, by the elected officials.
Would be willing to bet big, 40% of Americans did not have a favorable view of Socialism, way back in 2019. In Biden's 4 years, housing soared 50% or more. Trillions of tax payer dollars were flushed chasing Green fantasies, scientifically one step above the magic beans, in Jack and the Beanstalk. Americans began to think the American dream was no longer obtainable .
Oddly enough Biden's 10-12 million mostly impoverished and sparsely educated migrants, ironically mostly fleeing Socialism, are far more optimistic. Perhaps because, under Biden, the US government appeared far more concerned with their welfare, than that of American citizens.
In CA, Dems are currently screaming it is unfair to charge those dwelling illegally in the state $30 a month in healthcare premiums. (That is not a misprint. Health insurance that costs Americans $1000 a month if they are lucky, will now cost CA migrants who illegally entered the US, $30 a month. It was entirely free before.) Yet, not a single Dem has expressed concern at handing illegal migrants $30 a month healthcare, while the US government shut down for a month, over a lack of healthcare affordability for American citizens.
Ultimately the Dem best hope is a fast fall, with a decent bounce. New Yorkers expecting rent control and free childcare are going to be very disappointed, if they are implemented or not. Neither option will produce more housing units. What could possibly go wrong handing a 6 week old baby to the same people who designed and manage the DMV and the foster care system? Meanwhile, Seattle is likely to be even worse.
From sea to shining sea, Dems have mistaken disgust with Trump, for voters seeking Socialism. Biden's failed policies where a toe in the Socialism pool. By the end of his term, Americans were enduring early Venezuelan like results. It is far more likely to benefit Reps rather than Dems , when broadened Socialist programs, send the situation, from bad to worse.
A lot of it is our educational system. My gen z kids were all taught about capitalism based on its shortcomings and socialism based on its ideals. They got a different perspective from me at home because I made a point of discussing what they were learning and engaging in debate with them about it. We also pushed the kids to get summer jobs and make their own money to pay for things they wanted. 2 out of three are very libertarian leaning. The other one is more amenable to government welfare but would still consider herself capitalist not socialist.
Sorry, but any foothold socialism has gained in American politics says less if anything about its virtues-- current or historic -- and everything about the mounting failures of our once most cherished and trusted institutions; cultural, educational, political and yes, informational.
Yes, two things may be true at once, but not where sociakism, properly undetstood, is concerned.
Any green shoots of a post-woke Left are immediately stomped on by the Wokesters who control the Democratic nominating processes almost everywhere in America. No doubt in private many Democratic activists and aspiring candidates lament the woke/DEI craziness, but they won't say so out loud: their professional or electoral careers will end if they do so. The best hope for Democrats is that the Trump Party keeps avoiding serious issues (e.g. the looming shortfalls in Social Security and Medicare and huge increases in health insurance premiums), that Trump's Fed nominations result in high inflation, and that Trump keeps alienating persuadable voters with his repulsive personality (e.g. his appalling comments after the murders of Rob Reiner and his wife).
Yes, Trump is repulsive, but that doesn't mean I'm going to vote for an anti-Semite socialist/ communist who will reactivate the censorship industrial complex and reopen the borders. As far as I know, Dems haven't proposed any concrete policies about affordability, the debt, or increasing housing. Social Security and Medicare issues are radioactive, Dems would be on any Republican who even broached addressing the hard choices that will need to be made like white on rice. Instead they are insisting on adding Obamacare as a permanent entitlement. What's a voter to do?
What's a voter to do? Great question for which I have no answer. A strong general election candidate would level with voters and tell them that both tax increases of some types and spending reforms are needed - tradeoffs can't be avoided forever. A moderate Democrat would actually dial back the extremes of DEI, transgenderism, and open borders immigration. A moderate Republican would say - like Mitt Romney did recently - that some people will have to pay higher taxes because we can't keep borrowing into infinity. But more moderate types can't get nominated in either major party these days.
Which increase in taxes are we talking about. The rich? Has that ever been proven to solve any problems.
It always about expenses. And whether right or wrong, DOGE was a success to the lower ranks. All those poor over paid and under worked fed employees fired. Whole sections of the executive branch closed down as opposed to the bloat the Dems and biden added?
Is any one ready for what Trump will be able to do, and will, if the government wins Trump v. Slaughter? In the scheme things, the midterms become irrelevant. The Dems could win control of the House and senate, not being able to do anything with a veto proof majority, and Trump marches on with his EOs. Who looks even weaker and feckless then?
The biggest problem politicians have is just looking to the next election, no further. Instead of playing the long game. Pass small but but effective bills continuously to show they can govern. like the Muslims who have a hundred year plan for us and the world. Look around the world. How is that plan working out for Islam?
Agree, each year the government collects more money than the year before. Maybe if Dems had gotten on board with some of the DOGE efforts and not fought tooth and nail to give billions to their cronies...people know that most of the money doesn't filter down to the middle class.
The massive welfare fraud uncovered in MN and potentially going on in other states should put a nail in the coffin of any discussion on raising taxes. When we’re shoveling likely billions of dollars into the hands of fraudsters with zero accountability I’ll take a hard pass on giving the government any more of my tax dollars. Put some serious reforms in place including making the public charge rule mean something along with mechanisms to show tangible results and we can the look at the other side of the ledger.
Only appalling if you have not paid attention to the wacko monster Reiner became. The savvy voter knows what those statements and beliefs were, but do not express them in public.
Rob Reiner demeaned himself with his many unhinged comments about Trump. Nevertheless, Trump demeaned himself even more by how he commented on these parricides (child murdering of parents). Trump should have just expressed sadness over this tragedy, how mental illness strikes in many families, as in his older brother's alcoholism. The full-time Trump haters would have given him no credit for his humanity, but a huge majority of Americans would have.
I agree.
"Yet nearly forty percent of Americans hold a favorable view of socialism"
Was socialism defined or the respondents queried as to what their belief of socialism is prior to the "do you believe question"? If not, the 40% can not be used as a valid gauge of socialism support in this country.
Know your enemy.
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
"that regardless of what Trumpism is exactly, its mixture of cronyism, buffoonery, and malevolence is not to be minimized"
I would suggest the correct problem that needs to challenged is that the above three, are far seen far different by those who voted for Trump. Could Dems actually get rid of their currently proven dooming worldview?
Cronyism is actually the hiring and using of highly skilled experts with a lot experience in their selected fields of work.
buffoonery: actually, carefully calculated actions and words meant to elicit extreme reactions form the left. As we see, it works. Almost every time.
malevolence; actually is truth that is CW by the voters, who voted for Trump, and that truth points to what needs to be resolved rather than feelings that the left uses to guide it's ineffective actions upon.
Polls drive actions, well, and anything anti Trump. What concrete actions are the Dems even considering to show they can govern effectively.? Pack the SCOTUS? Follow the example of CA. Billions in debt and citizens leaving by the score? Illegal license given to non English speaking or reading illegals to drive semis? And kill American citizens? How many have currently be killed is irrelevant, because as the masses know, it can only get worse if not corrected. Or, the non assimilating minorities who have scammed the electorate out of billions of dollars? Do you really want Walz to defend that situation? If they don't want to assimilate, deport them.
If your basic premises are misstated or construed, you can't be a big time winner by hoping the other side fails. Anyone consider if the Trump claims about massive income tax returns prove true next year, right before a mid term, can you deal with that? As a senior, I already have been give $14 to $16 thousand dollars in added deductions biden never gave me and AARP never spoke about either. So many important issues to address, so little time.
Very good comment sir!
Thank you.
I have noticed that a significant aspect of most debates about 'socialism' I have seen in public and private discourse is the lack of rigor in defining it, whether from the left or the right.
A lot of 'democratic socialists', when asked for an example of the 'socialism' they are referring to, point to the Nordic states. Which are liberal market economies marked by private ownership of the means of production paired with robust and very well-run welfare states funded by high tax rates, and a liberal-democratic system of government.
Then the rightwardly-inclined folk, when asked to point to an instance of the 'socialism' *they* are referring to, point to the USSR and the Communist bloc. Which roughly means 'command economies marked by government ownership of the means of production and a lack of liberal markets, plus authoritarian or totalitarian governments.'
And the thing is, even *historically* speaking, socialism has been used to refer to a range of socioeconomic systems and visions. (The society advocated for by Blumhardt & Göhre's 'League of Religious Socialists' and the one advocated for by the 'United Soviet Socialist Republics' were totally different) It's just not a useful word when put into a political debate unless all parties to the conversation understand the history behind it and the heterogeneity of what it has referred to over that history. And most parties to these political debates over it do not.
Many Democratic socialists have government jobs.
As always in a Vassallo essay there is a lot there, I mean a little longer and you've got a danged book!
My attempt to choose the most crucial phrase of the whole thing came to this....**"it is because Trump has plainly not mitigated the affordability crisis and probably won’t or can’t, based on the policies and narrow business interests he is in thrall to."** People call it many things. Inflation, The Economy, affordability, whatever, it boils down to one thing, people don't have enough money to do the things they want to do or the things they have to do.
Trump's tariffs and closing the border to illegal immigration has earned the ire of Libertarians, especially in the corner offices. Lower Incomes need to rise fifteen or twenty percent for people to really feel richer. All of the tax stuff won't do it, low income workers don't pay income tax. Lower wage workers have actually lost income against a fairly low inflation rate.
A tripling of the min wage is what's needed but the Chamber of Commerce and Cato would be the ones buying pitchforks. I've got a long list of things Trump does that piss me off, but I'm still waiting for a better plan from my party. Interesting times.
One piece of this that I can’t get my head wrapped around is that the left is evidently “admiring of China’s progress while constantly disputing our own”??? China exemplifies all of the hyperbolic rhetoric the left launches a Trump and is actively engaged in genocide against a Moslem minority population that the left falsely accuses Israel of. So I’d love to know exactly what “progress” the left believes China is making?
There are aspects of the Chinese model that you can appreciate while still disapproving of its authoritarian characteristics. The Chinese state has nurtured a powerful industrial base, achieved broad-based economic growth, and attended to the general well-being of the average Chinese citizen, all while preventing the rise of an independent oligarchy that controls its economy, and slowly surpassing the U.S. in terms of geopolitical influence--and it has done it all without engaging in warfare. (Unfortunately that may not last given its aims for Taiwan)
Also, the Chinese model is nothing like Trumpism, which is volatile, irrational and corrupt. Nor is it run like a petty fiefdom like North Korea. Its bureaucracy, while definitely authoritarian, is highly rational in its organization and highly meritocratic in nature--in order to ascend in the ranks you not only have to take extremely rigorous examinations, but have a portfolio of demonstrated success at state management. Princelings can't buy a place in the upper echelon with campaign donations and bribes--among the country's leaders you find very few people who got to where they are by being the son of someone important, or just by being rich.
All that being said, it is definitely not a liberal system and as a liberal Westerner and American I could never live under it. But that's the thing--it's a system that emerges from a totally different cultural heritage than the West's. Its character makes a lot more sense when you look at how the Chinese Imperial system (which lasted thousands of years and led the world technologically right up until the industrial age) worked, and the disastrous results of China's attempt at Western-style liberal democracy. (See: the Warlord Era) Mainland China never really figured out how to make liberal democracy fit. (Taiwan did, though)
All while destroying the environment and using both real and de facto slave labor. Nothing points out the rank hypocrisy and projection coming from the modern left quite as clearly as their embrace of China.
I’m only speaking for myself, I don’t know who exactly you mean when you say ‘modern left’, but more importantly, can you point to anywhere I said I ‘embrace’ the illiberal aspects of the Chinese system?
Let me ask you this, too: do you appreciate the historical creation of American democracy? If so, does that then mean you embrace slavery, too, since it was a key part of the structure of American democracy?
Or does the statement "the vikings of the eighth century had a rather remarkably well-managed communal form-of-governance and were pretty technologically advanced for their time" imply the statement "the bloody raids conducted by the vikings were excellent and morally righteous"? I don't see how.
Again, you want to oversimplify this. But the truth is multifaceted and large complex systems can simultaneously have good and bad characteristics at the same time.
I judge 18th Century societies by 18th Century mores. Same for the Vikings where their practices were fully consistent with the mores of their time.
In the 21st century slavery is rightly understood to be an anathema and any government that practices it now should be roundly condemned and shunned not admired or praised.
Ok, so let’s pick a modern example—is it an endorsement of Nazism to argue that the German model of industrial development has been superior to those practiced by other Western European countries for the past two centuries?
Except that the Nazis were fortunately only 15 or so years out of the past two centuries. I was attempting to avoid Godwin’s Law but had considered the following:
There is a huge difference between saying you admire the autobahn and VW and saying you admire the Nazi’s because of the autobahn and VW.
It’s also worth pointing out that much of China’s economic success comes directly from from their willingness to trash the environment, and their willingness to use both real and de facto slave labor.
Years of GDP growth close to 10%. I lived a day's travel outside Kunming a city the size of greater Houston, they were delivering coal to heat and cook in donkey carts. Only cars were the rare army cars, or trucks, big empty wide boulevards full of bikes. I think the ten story Holiday Inn was the largest building in town.
I went months without seeing a contrail in the sky, we were in the shadow of the Himalayas. Nine years later the entire city is a traffic jam of cars, twenty or thirty high rises built or under construction. I haven't been back in a couple of decades. Today the second largest economy in the world.
Wages in Xiaguan were $10 a month for factory work, no dorms, no food. Today they pay $700.
Implementing the kind of cradle to grave welfare system the self described “socialists” on the left are calling for requires the kind of restrictionist immigration system that would make even Stephen Miller blush. It also requires raising taxes on the middle class as much as the wealthy. Both of which are pretty much non-starters with most Americans.
I voted straight ticket Democrat in every election, but this election I’m voting Republican in every a lot where the opponent is a progressive. Nothing else will send the message that the Democratic Party needs to deal with the utter stupidity and maliciousness of its progressives.
This giant "word salad" (reminds me of Kamala Harris) does have some insights, if you can find them.
IMO the public and the media conflate "socialism" with a "welfare state".
Socialism means that productive assets of all kinds are owned by the public at large (meaning the government, aka "the people"). Thus everyone in a socialist state works for the "government".
In a welfare state, the public surrenders the right to keep a significant share of their wages/income either directly via income taxation or indirectly via high consumption taxes. In return they get a stable economic safety net that prevents dire poverty throughout their lives and insures a modicum of health care and retirement income. In a welfare state, the means of production are owned by capitalists. Owners of private companies and all workers regardless of employer pay high taxes to fund the welfare state.
There is a world of difference. Successful welfare states exist. People can make a collective decision to forego individual private consumption to pay for collective insurance against individual economic failure. Residents of welfare states live economically smaller but more secure lives. This is a trade-off that rational people can make. All successful welfare states are found in "first world" countries that have amassed sufficient physical and human capital to sustain high living standards.
Socialist countries consistently fail economically at first and ultimately, politically: USSR, Venezuela, Cuba, Korea, Poland, Hungary, Rumania, East Germany, etc. The consistent failures of socialist economies are dismissed by socialists as a failure to implement "true socialism".....which is not defined.