The group that believes this already wants to vote for Trump. Screw them. They don’t care about facts anyway. You can’t reach this group, so there is no point in trying.
A fair number of never-Trump conservative types – the George Will wing, if you will – seem pretty alarmed about Alexandria Oligarchia-Communista and her leftist coup. How many voters they actually represent is a different question.
If they think this is socialism, there is nothing you, me or anyone else can do about it. You have to turn off your brain and ignore facts to believe that which means you can’t reach them. They’re a lost cause. There are plenty of them here talking about us becoming communists, and you know what, despite what these people say, they’re not never Trump conservatives. They have been out for myself and no one else Republicans since the start. They just hunt for excuses to say they had “no choice” to vote for what they want to vote to appease some inner struggle they never really had.
Because Reagan and friends harped on about it since the 50’s for why we shouldn’t have universal healthcare when every nation in Europe was adopting it after the war.
The problem they ran into was that in the 00’s everything became “socialism” so now people don’t equate it with Stalin’s Russia, they associate it with Sweden, healthcare and roads. Turns out crying wolf eventually does backfire.
What war hero, the guy never left the US?
Oh my bad, I had thought he served in Vietnam
That was a misquote and not something he claims he said. Vietnam era vet, but not Vietnam vet.
I doubt it. The people who believe that sort of thing will believe it no matter what Dems say about it. What Democratic Socialists are discussing is being more like Sweden, not more like Venezuela. The key is to talk about the policy proposals and why they work, not run away from the mug’s game of pejorative labels. Democrats stupidly ran away from being called liberal for 30 years or more. I don’t really think a repeat is called for.
Too late.
Guess what Beto? Every Democrat running is a capitalist.
The self selected term of “democratic socialist” is problematic.
A better term would be that they favor social democracy or something.
Capitalism with a social safety net, as practiced in most of Europe, is fine. Socialism, as practiced in places like Venezuela, is not fine at all.
So a… social network?
Facebook for president?
What happens in Sweden is good but not big-S socialism, and what happens in Venezuela is bad but not big-S socialism. Unless one believes that all big-S socialism necessarily means despotism, which I think is probably wrong.
Venezuela is in fact big-S socialism… they nationalized their industry, and then proceded to run it into the ground.
What part of socialism are we missing from Venezuela?
I think there is still private enterprise and significant private property ownership in Venezuela, along with most of the other trappings of capitalism.
And when is it that you think these things happened? Venezuela nationalized its oil industry in 1973, and has basically been a hostage of oil prices ever since. Things are bad now, but they were just as bad in the 80s and 90s, when there was no big-S socialism.
I’d also argue having a dictator in control runs counter to the base concept of socialism. Of course, one of the big problems with Big S Socialism is how it doesn’t jive with human nature (or whatever that’s been shaped into over the years) and how easily such a structure can be compromised by a power grab.
I’m sympathetic to that argument, but also aware that it can be applied to more or less any form of government. Democracy doesn’t jive very well with human nature, either.
Know what’s difficult? Google “Socialist countries today.” Majority of the returns seem to be OMGSOCIALISM from various conservative ‘think tanks’ while the others are from actual socialist (marxist) sounding publications. Jeez.
Anyway from the most neutral source I could find, here’s your list of socialist countries:
China
Laos
Vietnam
Cuba
That’s it. There’s a much longer list of countries with socialist parties in charge, or ones that have it in their constitution but it’s not actually followed (e.g. Angola.)
source:
Here’s an article from Aljazeera that does a good job explaining what happened in Venezuela.
Also true. What’s the old saying; it’s the least worst form of government? My specific comment was more about how it leads to power grabs, but yeah - democracy certainly has its own shortcomings and logical disconnects with the reality of who we are as many nations (including the US) have brightly illustrated.