The Myth of the Socialist Left
The ‘Democrats are Socialists’ trope has been a GOP talking point for decades. But who’s really more extreme?
During an appearance on This Week with George Stephanopoulos last weekend, Jason Miller, Trump campaign advisor, deadbeat dad, and all-around sleazy guy, made this comment:
And one final thing, George. If you speak with many smart Democrats, they believe that President Trump will be ahead on election night, probably getting 280 electoral, somewhere in that range.
And then they’re going to try to steal it back after the election. We believe that we will be over 290 electoral votes on election night. So no matter what they try to do, what kind of hi-jinks or lawsuits or whatever kind of nonsense, they try to pull off, we’re still going to have enough electoral votes to get President Trump reelected.
Why a veteran journalist like Stephanopoulos failed to push back on the ‘Democrats will try to steal the election’ talking point is a mystery. For months, we’ve known that Trump wants to invalidate as many legitimate votes — in the right localities — as possible. But Jason Miller’s use of the ABC platform to spread misinformation notwithstanding, he revealed Team Trump’s game.
Republicans intend to challenge mailed ballots arriving after Election Day as a pretext to challenging all mailed ballots. The Trump campaign hopes to halt the entire mail-in count by claiming ballot-commingling them with pre-Election Day mailed ballots. At the same time, their lawyers plan legal arguments up the judicial chain, hoping for a SCOTUS decision in their favor.
Like a comic book villain disclosing his plan for world domination, the President continually repeats that “we should be entitled to know who won on November 3rd” talking point. But the campaign’s nonsensical narrative — that counting votes after Election Day equates to cheating — is absurd.
Electoral College awards don’t occur until December, long after the actual election. We didn’t know the winner in previous presidential elections before midnight in 1960, 1968, 1976, 2000, 2004, or 2016.
On election eve, federal courts rebuked Republican lawsuits in Texas, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Nevada. To head the Trump campaign’s lawyers off at the pass, Pennsylvanian officials will sequester ballots received after Election Day to protect votes received before November 3rd.
But although a federal judge ruled in favor of Harris County, Texas’s ability to operate drive-through voting stations, county officials reduced the number of stations from nine to just one — even though Harris County won its case.
None of this seems very democratic.
“And is that a socialist or progressive perspective?”
That’s what Norah O’Donnell asked vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris during a recent interview on the CBS News program 60 Minutes.
The question underscores a pattern among the media that drives me nuts. We rely on numerous policies — Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, even the Civil Rights Act — that initially were derided as socialist policies.
The ‘Democrats are Socialists’ trope has been part of the Republican Party tactics since the 30s — from the New Deal to the Great Society. Even Harry Truman dealt with the ‘creeping socialism’ trope:
“Creeping socialization” — or “creeping socialism” — those are the words that give the game away. Socialism — sometimes “creeping” and sometimes “galloping” — is the slogan and patented trademark of the special interest lobbies. Socialism is the epithet they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years.
Now listen to this: Socialism is what they called public power. Socialism is what they called social security. Socialism is what they called farm price supports. Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance. Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations. Socialism is their name for anything that helps all the people.
Now, my friends, when the Republican candidate inscribes the slogan “Down with Socialism” on the banner of his great crusade, that is really not what he means at all. What he really means is “Down with Progress,” down with the New Deal and down with the fair Deal.” That’s what the objective of the great crusade is now. Don’t you fool yourselves.”
~Harry S. Truman, October 2, 1952
Through little more than constant repetition, the GOP has the mainstream media regurgitating their talking points. But given the President’s affinity for authoritarian dictators, when was the last time a journalist asked a Republican politician if caging of children, self-dealing, or ignoring basic government norms was ‘a fascist or authoritarian perspective?’
Despite the rise in white supremacist-related terrorism, the far-right infiltration of police departments, not to mention the President’s overt fascination with authoritarian dictators, the media continues to scrutinize Democratic policies as potentially too extreme.
A 2019 study from the Manifesto Project, an organization that reviews and categorizes party manifestos, platforms, and policy ideas, the Republican Party is more extreme than far-right populist parties like Britain’s Independence Party and France’s National Rally (formerly the National Front). Indeed, even though the 2020 Democratic Party is to the left of its days as ‘Republican Lite,’ it is still closer to mainstream liberal parties.
TRUE STORY: In 1933, a group of right-wing, pro-fascist conspirators partnered with Wall Street bankers in an attempt to overthrow the new Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. According to Major General Smedley Butler, a retired military hero, representatives of the group offered him $500,000 to raise a militia. The alleged perpetrators weren’t a fringe group — they were among the country’s titans of the times. The Business Plot, also known as the Wall Street Putsch (Swiss-German for coup d’ état), emerged from a backlash to the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, an economy and financial system on the edge of collapse as a result of the Great Depression.
The purpose of the conspiracy? To replace the FDR administration with a fascist government. Then as now, many Americans felt capitalism was broken. The country was in the middle of the Great Depression and a financial crisis. Conservatives feared Roosevelt’s proposed abandonment of the gold standard and his progressive policies. Although the press dismissed the plot as a hoax, the House Un-American Activities Committee held hearings to get to the bottom of the plot. The hearings went nowhere, and The Business Plot faded into America’s untold history.
Over the last four years, the GOP has evolved into the party of white male grievance. Instead of recognizing America’s growing diversity, they chose to welcome neo-fascists, segregationists, and white nationalists into their coalition. In just a few hours, we’ll know what kind of America to expect for the next four years.
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The Truman quote is astonishing