Most of the media will spend the next three months pretending that Democrat socialists are sweet and pure as they continue to attack Republicans.
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For the last ten years, Trump has worked very hard to reduce the size and power of government, lower taxes, reduce regulations, and essentially give more power to the people and the private sector. Meanwhile, the media and other Democrats have intentionally told the public that Trump is an authoritarian, a fascist, a dictator, and a king. In addition to endless Hitler comparisons, they investigated him for years on claims that he was a Putin pawn or asset.
We will hear a lot about affordability from the media and other Democrats before the election, but they didn’t seem nearly as concerned about affordability in 2022, when Biden-era inflation reached over 9% and average gas prices went above $5 per gallon. At the time, they were telling us how great Biden’s policies were.
Now Democratic Socialists are becoming an increasingly visible part of Democrat politics, but the media is working hard to convince the public that their ideas really aren’t all that radical. At the same time, the media tries to maintain a clear distinction between establishment Democrats and Democratic Socialists, even though there is considerable overlap in many of their policies.
An interesting indication of how blurred that distinction has become came recently when centrist House Democrats circulated a “Promise to America.” One of the promises was very simple: “We are capitalist, not socialist.” There are 212 Democrats in the House, and only ten signed it.
That means 202 House Democrats declined to sign a statement saying they are capitalists rather than socialists. That doesn’t prove those 202 Democrats are socialists, but it certainly raises the question of why almost all House Democrats are unwilling to say they aren’t.
This USA Today article is an example of the type of coverage we will see before the election: “Democratic Socialism: What it is, what it isn’t”
The article starts out attacking Trump and other Republicans for using the terms “socialist” and “communist” to describe Democratic Socialists. It even compares the Republicans to Joseph McCarthy.
The writers then reassure readers that Democratic Socialists aren’t authoritarians because, according to the Democratic Socialists of America, they reject “authoritarian visions of socialism.”
Of course, asking the Democratic Socialists whether Democratic Socialists are authoritarian may not be the most useful test. It is much more informative to look at what the DSA itself says it wants.
The talks about universal health care at no cost to individuals, free public education from pre-K through college, cancellation of all student debt, a 32-hour work week with full pay and benefits, a federal jobs guarantee, massive publicly owned energy and transit infrastructure, and phasing out fossil fuels.
Those ideas require a tremendous expansion of government and would cost enormous amounts of money, although articles explaining democratic socialism generally spend much more time describing the promised benefits than telling taxpayers what they would cost.
But the DSA platform goes much further.
It calls for demilitarizing police departments and redirecting police funding as steps toward “fully abolishing the police and prison system.” It wants to abolish ICE detention and deportations, grant amnesty to all illegal immigrants regardless of status, and end visa caps and quotas.
It would also extend full voting rights to all permanent U.S. residents and restore voting rights to incarcerated people.
Then there are its ideas about American government.
The DSA wants to abolish the Electoral College. It wants to abolish the Senate. It wants to replace the president and the Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress.
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We hear constantly that Trump is a threat to democracy, yet it is hard to imagine the media reaction if a Republican organization published a platform calling for abolishing the Senate, eliminating the presidency as we know it, and making the Supreme Court subordinate to Congress.
The DSA also calls for public ownership of the largest corporations and essential industries. Its own program describes its goal as ending the existing capitalist system and building “a democratic socialist republic.”
That sounds pretty socialist.
Moreover, there is significant overlap between the DSA agenda and policies supported by the broader Democrat party, although certainly not every Democrat supports every DSA position.
Democrats have pushed for much greater government involvement in health care, huge subsidies for green energy, student loan forgiveness, higher taxes, greater regulation of the economy, expanded government benefits, and restrictions on fossil fuels. Many Democrats support sanctuary jurisdictions, and the party’s left wing has repeatedly pushed to reduce immigration enforcement.
Democrats also claim to support the little guy, but a substantial part of the party wants to get rid of the Electoral College, which gives voters in smaller states at least some protection against government being entirely controlled by the biggest population centers. The DSA goes even further by calling for abolishing the Senate itself.
The DSA’s Green New Deal calls for a massive government-directed transformation of the economy and the elimination of fossil fuels. Democrats may disagree about how fast to go or exactly how to do it, but climate policies that restrict fossil fuels and heavily subsidize favored energy sources have become mainstream Democrat policies.
Democrats also increasingly talk as though government can make college, daycare, health care, and other things “free.” But these things aren’t free. The costs are simply shifted to taxpayers. Government subsidies also tend to distort prices because the person receiving the service is increasingly separated from the actual cost.
Democrats say they support poor and working-class people, yet the party remains closely allied with teachers’ unions that fight school-choice programs that would give poor parents alternatives to failing public schools.
The party’s left wing also takes positions on abortion and men in women’s sports that are substantially outside the views of much of the public.
The point is not that every Democrat has joined the Democratic Socialists of America or supports every line of its platform. They haven’t.
The more interesting question is why the differences between Democratic Socialists and supposedly mainstream Democrats keep getting smaller—and why almost all House Democrats just declined an opportunity to say plainly, “We are capitalist, not socialist.”
The media certainly knows what is in the DSA platform. Yet reporters will describe its supporters as progressives and spend considerable effort explaining that democratic socialism really isn’t anything Americans should worry about.
Meanwhile, Trump will continue to be called an authoritarian.
One other thing is worth remembering. Capitalism has generated enormous prosperity and helped produce a historic decline in poverty around the world. During Trump’s first term, before COVID disrupted the economy, median household income reached a record high, and the official poverty rate fell to a record low in 2019.
Democratic Socialists nevertheless want to replace capitalism with a system giving government vastly greater control over economic life.
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They are entitled to make that argument.
But the media should stop pretending they aren’t socialists when they do.
Image created using AI.