Commie flavor
5/2/18 17:05![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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talkpoliticsPoll: More millennials would prefer to live under socialism than capitalism
One year into his presidency, #45 only has a 39% approval rating. For the last four decades no other POTUS has slumped so low. The Dems are not doing much better than him either, on the other hand. Just about 2/5 of Americans are positively predisposed to the donkey party.
If you want to find a political wing that hasn't suffered for the last year, you'd have to look more to the left. The socialist organizations, marginalized and persecuted for years because of not being mainstream enough, are now swelling. The DSA is doing particularly good. It used to have a relatively stable membership of about 6K ever since its inception in the early 80s, but after Trump got elected they welcomed 1K+ new members. Now a year later they claim at least 25K members, possibly making them the biggest socialist organization in the US since WW2. This is definitely a reaction to Trump, but also to the failure of the Dems to provide an inspiring alternative.
Actually the DSA is not a typical political party, although its members do pay a membership fee. They volunteer to support leftist politicians, unions and various campaigns related to welfare, government reform, health care, etc. They insist on defining themselves as "democratic socialists", to differentiate themselves from authoritarian socialist governments of the Soviet type. Noam Chomsky has been a member, and also other celebs like Cornel West and Barbara Ehrenreich. It's like a big-tent group gathering various leftist movements, from Dem leftists to outright Leninsts.
15 candidates supported by the DSA won seats in the local and state elections last November. Some ran as Dems, others as Independents. Bernie Sanders was among the few US politicians to openly declare themselves socialist. He was a huge challenge to Hillary, running on a democratic-socialist platform, and that evidently helped him a lot. He still appears to be the most popular politician (53% approval), the only person in US politics to be favored by the majority of voters. Although he was never in the DSA, he's part of the same tradition. And he may've been the guy who directed thousands of youngsters in that direction, especially after Trump's victory.
Of course the SA is not the only socialist organization to enjoy a renaissance. Brian Beane's International Socialist Organization also reports a 40% increase in membership. 2K+ attended their socialist conference in Chicago last summer, 30% more than a year earlier.
It's evident that the youth are definitely viewing socialism more favorably these days. There've been other strong socialist movements in the US before, like at the time of Eugene Debs in the 20s who ran for the Socialist Party and won almost a million votes - while sitting in prison. Then there was the McCarthyist era in the 50s who persecuted thousands of socialists on claims of links to the Soviets, sometimes real, sometimes fabricated. The socialists have stayed on the sidelines ever since - until now.
Some believe that Bernie's popularity and DSA's surge shows that socialism is entering a new era in the US, where the political landscape has been tilted so severely to the right that the Dems, a centrist party, is considered "the Left".
There's a lot of cultural baggage behind this. In the 80s, there was hardly a more damning word than "socialist" in US society. Now this is changing. Young people born in the new century are not burdened by the memory of the Cold War, unlike their forebears. So they're more open to the socialist ideas. Indeed, the above poll shows that half of Americans aged 18-29 would prefer to live in a socialist (or in a more extreme case, communist) society rather than in a capitalist (fascist?) one.
Actually, Bernie Sanders' brand of socialism is much closer to the classical European social-democracy than to historical socialism. So when we speak of socialism today, we may relate it to some modernized, improved version of the New Course doctrine, i.e. substantial government intervention with investment in infrastructure and social services, like what happened in the US after the Great Depression.
While the defeated and clueless Democratic Party is struggling to hold its positions against a Republican-dominated government, many socialists believe they have a better chance to earn support from the next voter generation. Indeed, if you look around the social networks you'd soon realize that most young Americans don't put negative connotations to the term "socialism". Which means that in some sense, the US society is gradually getting out of its inherent Cold War mentality.
One year into his presidency, #45 only has a 39% approval rating. For the last four decades no other POTUS has slumped so low. The Dems are not doing much better than him either, on the other hand. Just about 2/5 of Americans are positively predisposed to the donkey party.
If you want to find a political wing that hasn't suffered for the last year, you'd have to look more to the left. The socialist organizations, marginalized and persecuted for years because of not being mainstream enough, are now swelling. The DSA is doing particularly good. It used to have a relatively stable membership of about 6K ever since its inception in the early 80s, but after Trump got elected they welcomed 1K+ new members. Now a year later they claim at least 25K members, possibly making them the biggest socialist organization in the US since WW2. This is definitely a reaction to Trump, but also to the failure of the Dems to provide an inspiring alternative.
Actually the DSA is not a typical political party, although its members do pay a membership fee. They volunteer to support leftist politicians, unions and various campaigns related to welfare, government reform, health care, etc. They insist on defining themselves as "democratic socialists", to differentiate themselves from authoritarian socialist governments of the Soviet type. Noam Chomsky has been a member, and also other celebs like Cornel West and Barbara Ehrenreich. It's like a big-tent group gathering various leftist movements, from Dem leftists to outright Leninsts.
15 candidates supported by the DSA won seats in the local and state elections last November. Some ran as Dems, others as Independents. Bernie Sanders was among the few US politicians to openly declare themselves socialist. He was a huge challenge to Hillary, running on a democratic-socialist platform, and that evidently helped him a lot. He still appears to be the most popular politician (53% approval), the only person in US politics to be favored by the majority of voters. Although he was never in the DSA, he's part of the same tradition. And he may've been the guy who directed thousands of youngsters in that direction, especially after Trump's victory.
Of course the SA is not the only socialist organization to enjoy a renaissance. Brian Beane's International Socialist Organization also reports a 40% increase in membership. 2K+ attended their socialist conference in Chicago last summer, 30% more than a year earlier.
It's evident that the youth are definitely viewing socialism more favorably these days. There've been other strong socialist movements in the US before, like at the time of Eugene Debs in the 20s who ran for the Socialist Party and won almost a million votes - while sitting in prison. Then there was the McCarthyist era in the 50s who persecuted thousands of socialists on claims of links to the Soviets, sometimes real, sometimes fabricated. The socialists have stayed on the sidelines ever since - until now.
Some believe that Bernie's popularity and DSA's surge shows that socialism is entering a new era in the US, where the political landscape has been tilted so severely to the right that the Dems, a centrist party, is considered "the Left".
There's a lot of cultural baggage behind this. In the 80s, there was hardly a more damning word than "socialist" in US society. Now this is changing. Young people born in the new century are not burdened by the memory of the Cold War, unlike their forebears. So they're more open to the socialist ideas. Indeed, the above poll shows that half of Americans aged 18-29 would prefer to live in a socialist (or in a more extreme case, communist) society rather than in a capitalist (fascist?) one.
Actually, Bernie Sanders' brand of socialism is much closer to the classical European social-democracy than to historical socialism. So when we speak of socialism today, we may relate it to some modernized, improved version of the New Course doctrine, i.e. substantial government intervention with investment in infrastructure and social services, like what happened in the US after the Great Depression.
While the defeated and clueless Democratic Party is struggling to hold its positions against a Republican-dominated government, many socialists believe they have a better chance to earn support from the next voter generation. Indeed, if you look around the social networks you'd soon realize that most young Americans don't put negative connotations to the term "socialism". Which means that in some sense, the US society is gradually getting out of its inherent Cold War mentality.
(no subject)
Date: 5/2/18 19:20 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 5/2/18 19:24 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 5/2/18 19:28 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 5/2/18 22:19 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 5/2/18 19:46 (UTC)Like the Tea Party, they will be looked at as a branch, not a tree. So, when it comes to the rising numbers in Socialist Clubs - know that they aren't taking numbers away from Republicans, they're taking them away from Democrats. In the end, that may make for more entertaining and divisive primaries - but in a general elections, you have to pull the sides together (something that is much easier if you don't have personal emails exposed where you call one of those sides stupid, and/or losers)
(no subject)
Date: 6/2/18 06:30 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/2/18 09:01 (UTC)Best cover for new Democrat candidates evar.
(no subject)
Date: 8/2/18 14:39 (UTC)Speaking of her - Hillary is 100-1 to win right now. Not that I think she'll run, or that she'd win if she did - but having the same odds as Ivanka Trump, Will Smith, and whoever the hell Bob Iger is? That's just ridiculous.
(no subject)
Date: 8/2/18 21:18 (UTC)