Every American over the age of 45 has had it drilled that there is no difference between socialism and communism, and that it’s a failed system which the US spent 50 years combatting, almost leading to nuclear war several times, whereas capitalism is the only system that allows for any person to have freedom.
The two political parties have taken advantage of this fact to offer the choice of center right and far right policy at the cost of social programs.
Now you have someone like Bernie, who outwardly uses the term socialist, and is pushing to get people to understand that having center-left policy is a good thing, but he’s fighting 50 years of anti-USSR propaganda.
I think there are some motivated by anti-Communist propaganda, but a lot more were suckered in by a theory of politics where everything was mostly correct and Democrats just need to keep up the slow and steady progress to optimize away the few minor problems that exist. All the systemic things that aren’t good are just laws of nature, not the result of policy choices that could just be changed. Nevermind that other countries have done so or how unbelievably wealthy we are as a nation.
The only thing that makes bad policy happen is Republicans being in power, so when the Democratic party’s master plan in disrupted, that’s bad. They’re the adults in the room and experts on policy and winning elections after all. And Bernie did that in 2016. If we’d all just checked out, ignored all the steadily worsening problems in the status quo, and followed orders we’d all be happy at brunch.
Which with Trump being SO bad and the margins being so close, that might have been true (along with a host of other potential reasons the party downplays because they’re their fault). But it’d just be a band-aid like Biden was. The problem is it’s not Trump that’s the singular threat of fascism. He’s kicked it into high gear, but the alternate timeline brunch-goers would still have children living at home because they can’t afford housing, be one step away from medical bankruptcy, and feel constantly in danger of losing their livelihood.
Trump didn’t do any of that, but pressure like that makes people look for outsiders to blame and leaders willing to radically change the system. If it wasn’t him it’d be Tucker Carlson or someone else. And until that happened we’d keep trading back and forth with Republicans because the status quo always feels bad even while we’re convinced it cannot change.
It’s less that left change is communist and communism must be avoided at all cost, it’s that the Democratic party is already doing the best possible and anything else is dangerous and harmful. And they’ll point at Trump as proof. Nevermind that his change is bad because he wants bad things, the problem is all change.
I’m also not American, but understanding is thus:
Every American over the age of 45 has had it drilled that there is no difference between socialism and communism, and that it’s a failed system which the US spent 50 years combatting, almost leading to nuclear war several times, whereas capitalism is the only system that allows for any person to have freedom.
The two political parties have taken advantage of this fact to offer the choice of center right and far right policy at the cost of social programs.
Now you have someone like Bernie, who outwardly uses the term socialist, and is pushing to get people to understand that having center-left policy is a good thing, but he’s fighting 50 years of anti-USSR propaganda.
I think there are some motivated by anti-Communist propaganda, but a lot more were suckered in by a theory of politics where everything was mostly correct and Democrats just need to keep up the slow and steady progress to optimize away the few minor problems that exist. All the systemic things that aren’t good are just laws of nature, not the result of policy choices that could just be changed. Nevermind that other countries have done so or how unbelievably wealthy we are as a nation.
The only thing that makes bad policy happen is Republicans being in power, so when the Democratic party’s master plan in disrupted, that’s bad. They’re the adults in the room and experts on policy and winning elections after all. And Bernie did that in 2016. If we’d all just checked out, ignored all the steadily worsening problems in the status quo, and followed orders we’d all be happy at brunch.
Which with Trump being SO bad and the margins being so close, that might have been true (along with a host of other potential reasons the party downplays because they’re their fault). But it’d just be a band-aid like Biden was. The problem is it’s not Trump that’s the singular threat of fascism. He’s kicked it into high gear, but the alternate timeline brunch-goers would still have children living at home because they can’t afford housing, be one step away from medical bankruptcy, and feel constantly in danger of losing their livelihood.
Trump didn’t do any of that, but pressure like that makes people look for outsiders to blame and leaders willing to radically change the system. If it wasn’t him it’d be Tucker Carlson or someone else. And until that happened we’d keep trading back and forth with Republicans because the status quo always feels bad even while we’re convinced it cannot change.
It’s less that left change is communist and communism must be avoided at all cost, it’s that the Democratic party is already doing the best possible and anything else is dangerous and harmful. And they’ll point at Trump as proof. Nevermind that his change is bad because he wants bad things, the problem is all change.
You understand wrong.