After recent primary election results, it's hard to ignore the concept of social-something or another rampaging around in the Dem Party.
As usual and expected, Trump and MAGA demagoguery are spewing tons of toxic mental miasma about communism in the Dem Party. MAGA's tippy-top best hyperbole and lies attacks are trying to make the liberal social-whatever sound like a horrific, imminent overwhelming catastrophe. No surprise in any of that moral rot.
MSM reporting like this, New CNBC Generation Lab poll shows almost half of 18- to 34-year-olds favor democratic socialism, is becoming more prominent. Apparently, most of those folks have a very negative view of the American economy and capitalism generally.
Social democracy vs. democratic socialism
Social democrats support the concept of social democracy. Modern social democracy evolved from a movement seeking a peaceful transition to actual socialism into a politics that generally accepts a regulated capitalist mixed economy with significant public welfare. These people want much better regulation of capitalism than what the GOP has been arguing for since the 1960s, and what Trump and MAGA policy have been delivering since they came into power in 2017.
By contrast, democratic socialists are real socialists. This group wants a democratically run socialist economy, including abolishment of capitalism, not just regulation of it. This group has completely given up on capitalism, and they want socialism to replace it. That's true radicalism. They want public ownership of assets used to produce services and goods to insure that they serve the public interest before serving wealthy people and entities and their special interests.
Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) elected officials or candidates are generally aligned with the DSA’s stated premise, which is that working people should run the economy and society democratically to meet human needs rather than generate profits for a few. Apparently a growing portion of Americans find that appealing (but some of us do not).
Policy overlaps
Policy overlap between the two groups is huge. In general, both social democrats and democratic socialists want things like (1) universal or near-universal health coverage, often by Medicare expansion, a public option, or single-payer insurance, (2) stronger labor unions by easier organizing, penalties for union busting, sectoral bargaining, wage floors, and public-sector labor rights, (3) progressive taxation, expanded refundable tax credits, Social Security and Medicare protection, paid leave, child care, and affordable higher education, (4) investment and industrial policy that protects the environment, coupled with supporting labor standards and public infrastructure, and (5) aggressive antitrust, consumer regulation, financial rules, and public provision in selected areas.
Polling indicates that most Americans mostly support those policy goals. The Democratic Party platform itself is fundamentally aligned with those policy goals. The Dem Party still does not support full social ownership of the economy. The Dem Party supports reconstructing labor bargaining power and decommodifying or subsidizing some necessities (health care, shelter, education, water, mobility) while retaining a predominantly a private-enterprise economy.
Obviously, MAGA elites and Trump oppose all of it, despite their gaslighting propaganda telling us they support the little guy and his concerns. By now it is crystal clear that MAGA propaganda is a huge pile of . . . . .
Big stinking pile of MAGA propaganda
about working for the little guy
Policy differences
There are big differences between the two groups. Democratic socialists support major changes like (1) worker-owned or worker-governed firms, (2) public, municipal, cooperative, or social ownership in essential sectors, typically energy, transit, housing, finance, health care, and broadband, (3) public banking and democratic control over investment, (4) social housing that is permanently outside speculative private markets, (5) a greater role for democratic planning, especially in climate transition and essential goods, and (6) universal programs for wealth redistribution, and as a means of reducing people's dependency on employers and markets.
That's real socialism. Those people aren't messing around with capitalism any more. The reasons for that level of discontent are obvious. MAGA and trickle down economics mostly trickles wealth and power up to elites and allied special interests. In the process, most of get shafted and are left in a grumpy mood.
Oats are natural resources, means of production, control of money and finance, the horse is the elites and special interests, the emoji is what it looks like, and we are the sparrow
A critically important point: American democratic socialism is not the same as Soviet-style state socialism. The American theory emphasizes pluralist democracy, civil liberties, decentralized or mixed forms of social ownership, and worker/community governance. By contrast with the USSR, which substitutes state bureaucrats for private owners, keeping nearly all of the citizenry in crappy, permanently shafted conditions. MAGA demagogues routinely lie about this critical distinction.
Where or what is the Dem Party establishment in all of this?
The Dem establishment is heterogenous, reflecting the bigger tent it lives in compared to the GOP. It is composed of mostly of wall street Democrats or business- and finance-friendly liberals, labor liberals or New Deal liberals, civil-rights and rights-based liberals, and state and local party machines.
The Dem establishment is reasonably described as conventional social liberalism. That means market-friendly capitalism with targeted benefits, anti-discrimination law, limited regulation, and incremental reform when needed. Social democracy is generally to the left of that. Democratic socialism is further left than that.
Q2: To what extent is the rise of American style socialism on the left the fault of Trump and MAGA party politics and policies, with their failures to deliver for the little guy -- mostly their fault, some, a little, or none at all?
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