The 'S-Word': Socialism Isn't The Scare Word It Once Was
NPR, April 24--Time was when the word "socialism" had a firm footing in the American political lexicon, with as many meanings as it has collected in all the other nations where it has taken root — as mixed or pure, as planned or market, as democratic or authoritarian, as a dogma or simply an aspiration — "the name of our desire," as the critic Irving Howe (and Lewis Coser) famously defined it.
But once the native socialist movement crumbled in the 1920s, the right compacted the word into a single term of abuse. It became the "S-word," as John Nichols of The Nation magazine titled his recent history of socialism in America.
From Social Security and unemployment insurance to Medicare and the Affordable Health Care Act, Republicans have labeled every social welfare program proposed by the Democrats as "socialist," "socialistic" or "creeping socialism," a phrase coined by Thomas Dewey in 1939. Give socialism a foothold, they say, and nothing can arrest the slide to perdition. In 1936, Herbert Hoover said that FDR's socialist policies were leading America on a march to Moscow. With the fall of the Soviet empire a half-century later, Republicans had to redirect that road to a warmer destination.
As Vice Pres. Pence told CPAC/Conservative Political Action Committee in March, "We know where socialism leads. If you want socialism, just look at Venezuela." But the logic hasn't changed since Hoover's time. Passing universal health care or a $15 minimum wage is like picking up a Monopoly card that says, "Go directly to Caracas. Do not pass Stockholm." Until recently, Democrats dismissed those charges as fear-mongering. In 1952, Harry Truman called "socialism" a scare word and said that when a Republican said, "Down with socialism!" he really meant "Down with progress!"
- President Harry Truman, Missouri Democrat (1945-1953), with Stalin (L), Churchill (R), Potsdam Conference, 1945.
But the S-word isn't quite as spine-chilling now, particularly to millennials. They have no memory of the Cold War — for many, the fall of the Berlin Wall is just one of a mash of '80s film clips, along with the Exxon Valdez, Pac-Man and Boy George. The upheaval that shaped their political perceptions was the financial meltdown of the mid-2000s. That made them keenly aware of the mayhem that Godzilla capitalism could wreak and of the economic inequality that the Occupy movement captured with quantitative precision with the new phrase "the one percent."..
The great majority of millennials associate socialism with New Deal-style programs like universal health care and access to free higher education, not state control of business. And while they give low marks to capitalism, they aren't hostile to free markets —MORE, https://www.npr.org/2019/04/24/716728643/socialism-isn-t-the-scare-word-it-once-was
ALSO: Trump's 'Socialism' Attack On Democrats Has Its Roots In Cold War Fear
https://www.npr.org/2019/02/12/693618375/socialism-vs-greatness-for-trump-that-s-2020-in-a-nutshell
-> GRAPH: More Democrats View Socialism Positively, Gallup 2018
A remarkable shift has happened in just the past decade, since the 2008 financial collapse — more Democrats now have a positive view of the word "socialism" (57 %) than "capitalism" (43 %), Gallup found last year. That diverges from the country overall, as only slightly more than a third (37 %) of Americans have a positive view of socialism.
It's generational - a majority of young people, those aged 18 to 29, see socialism positively and have a dimmer view of capitalism. Older Americans have a more sharply negative view of the term — 41 % of those aged 30 to 49, 30 % of those aged 50 to 64 and just 28 % of those 65 and older view it positively.
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