Some may take this post as an attack on Senator Bernie Sanders. I certainly hope not. Although I do support Hillary Clinton, I have the utmost respect for Bernie Sanders. I believe him to be one of our finest senators -- and I welcome him to the Democratic Party's nominating process. While I don't think he'll win it, his presence will insure that progressive ideas finally will get a hearing in the campaign process.
But Bernie has a problem -- a big problem for someone running for president. He's a socialist, and he's been running as a socialist for many years. Now there's nothing wrong with being a socialist. I am a socialist, as are many of my friends. And this country has enacted many socialist programs -- like Social Security, Food Stamps, Medicare, aid for the poor, unemployment insurance, Medicaid, free public education, etc.
These programs were submitted to the public a socialist when they were being considered, and ultimately passed -- but socialist they are, and they are also good programs that benefit the country as a whole. So, why would a candidate calling himself a socialist have a problem because of that?
It all started with the "Red Scare" campaigns of the 1920's and 1930's. Right-wingers successfully connected socialism to communism and dictatorship -- even though socialism is not communism, and cannot truly exist in a dictatorship (because one of the major tenets of socialism is to put people in charge of their own lives -- which is impossible in a tyrannical form of government).
And right-wingers, funded and encouraged by the greedy capitalists (who don't want to share the wealth of this country with workers), have continued the propaganda campaign to smear socialism to this very day. A few people see through this smear campaign, but not nearly enough. Far too many Americans still fear socialism. This is illustrated in the charts below -- made from a recent YouGov Poll done between May 6th and 8th of a random national sample of 1,000 adults, with about a 4 point margin of error. Note that only 26% of American have a favorable view of socialism, while 51% have a negative view.
And perhaps most important, only 28% of voters say they could vote for a candidate identifying as a socialist, while a whopping 72% say they could not vote for that candidate. Those are some huge negative numbers to overcome.
Some of you may say that Bernie has been successful in Vermont by calling himself a socialist -- and that is true. But Vermont is a very small state, with only about 627,000 inhabitants. It's not that hard for a candidate to criss-cross the state, meet the voters, and explain his positions so they can understand them. But this country of more than 300,000,000 is a far different thing -- and so are the swing states that have millions of inhabitants. It's far more difficult to overcome the ingrained prejudices of millions of people in just a few months.
Now this prejudice against socialists won't hurt Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries too much. He is going after the liberal vote -- and those voters are not scared by socialism. But in a general election, the fact that Sanders identifies himself as a socialist would be a killer. It would mean he would lose, even to a member of the radical right (who would identify to voters as a christian and capitalist).
I wish it wasn't true, but Bernie Sanders has an albatross around his neck -- socialism.
(NOTE -- The caricature above of Bernie Sanders is by DonkeyHotey.)
