With Bernie Sanders’ campaign likely nearing its end, it’s worth reflecting on the U.S.’s nearest brush with elevating a “democratic socialist” to the presidency. It may not be the last.
A majority of Democrats are now more positive about socialism than capitalism, and support among millennials for capitalism is declining (only 50%), while support for communism continues to grow (now 36%).
Part of the increasing acceptance of “socialism” may be attributed to the subtle shift in the public perception of the term to mean “social services” rather than “government control” of the economy. But that’s only part of it. After all, Mr. Sanders’ platform advocates, among other things, the federal takeover of the health care industry, a guaranteed jobs program and the restructuring of the energy industry via a “Green New Deal.” That’s government control by any definition.
So while Mr. Sanders’ campaign for “democratic socialism” might espouse only democratic revolution, it still borrows from socialist ideologies. Consider these.
Revisionism
“When dictators do something good ... you acknowledge that,” insists Mr. Sanders. In doing so, he spreads their propaganda. Admiring Cuba’s literacy rate obscures the motivation of its communist rulers to indoctrinate children, with students chanting, “Pioneers for communism, We will be like Che!” (“Yes, they taught us to read and write,” a Cuban artist explains, “And then they forbade us to read what we want and write what we think.”) And crediting communist China with taking “more people out of extreme poverty than any country in history,” as Mr. Sanders has, also rewrites the history of the more than 45 million famine victims from Mao’s “Great Leap Forward.”
A penchant for finding a silver lining in every communist regime is neither intellectual “nuance” nor innocent “idealism.” Imagine extolling Nazi Germany’s low unemployment rate or fascist Italy’s timely trains. But socialist ideologies make exceptions for communist regimes because they share the same enemies (wealthy capitalists), have the same agenda (political revolution), envision the same utopia (material equality) and favor the same role for government (more is better).
Hostility to charity
“I don’t believe in charities,” Mr. Sanders once told a shocked audience at a United Way fundraiser. His wealth tax proves it. Charitable foundations would not be exempt, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which alone funded $50 billion in global health programs and other causes.
Ironically, while socialism is rooted in the supposed greed of free-market capitalism, those free-market economies foster some of the most altruistic peoples. The U.S. is recognized as the most generous country in the world, with the highest rates of helping strangers, donating to charities and volunteering time. Other countries atop this list include New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, Canada, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. Those are also some of the world’s freest economies. Which populations are the least generous? Countries with a history of communism.
Demagoguery
“It’s an age-old weapon used by demagogues ... you take a minority and you demonize that minority and you blame that minority ... And you take the despair and the anger and the frustration that people are feeling and you say, ‘That’s the cause of your problem.’” That’s how Mr. Sanders, in an interview with The New York Times editorial board, criticized President Trump for campaigning on immigration. Mr. Sanders, however, apparently sees no problem in blaming a different minority for the country’s woes if that minority is the wealthy class of “millionaires and billionaires” he accuses of stealing the American Dream.
One reporter described his appeal to voters this way: “People tell him of the bill they can’t pay that keeps them awake, and he tells them that the chief executive of the local insurance company makes however-many million.” To borrow Mr. Sanders’ words, he takes “the despair and the anger and the frustration that people are feeling” and then points to the wealthy and says, “That’s the cause of your problem.” To thrive, socialism needs an enemy; it’s most often wealth.
Unprecedented spending
“Well, I can’t — you know, I can’t rattle off to you every nickel and every dime.” That was Mr. Sanders’ response when pressed to explain how he could pay for his unprecedented $60 trillion package of spending programs, which would more than double the size of the federal government. For perspective, even though currently the unemployment rate has fallen to a 50-year low, Mr. Sanders proposes spending 2.5 times more than FDR’s New Deal at the height of the Great Depression. Despite the fiscal risks, Mr. Sanders asks the public, in essence, to trust him that he has it all worked out. It’s the type of risk that one takes only with other people’s money.
There is little exaggeration in saying Bernie Sanders’ campaign represents the most radical agenda ever to come close to winning a U.S. presidential primary election. If his democratic socialist platform is not to become a regular fixture in American politics, its socialist elements must continue to be identified clearly, and the rising generation educated more about socialism’s dangers.
Michael Erickson is an attorney in Salt Lake City.