Barack Obama was called "socialist" in '08 and '12. He had popular vote majority wins TWICE.

[Ken Burch]

The "s-word" officially no longer works as a slur in American politics.

[Man of Distinction]

1. Yes, We were told that Obama was a Muslin Kenyan Socialist that is supposed to TAKE AWAY YOUR GUNS

and did exactly nothing of that sort...

So the Republicans have successfully abused the word "social(*)" to where people go, "Huh?" - we all practice all kinds of socialism every day, and people don't realize it.

Nothing scary about it.

[arcane1]

2. Hell, they called him a freakin' terrorist! An al-Qaeda sleeper-agent groomed to destroy America!

Name-calling didn't work then, and it will work even LESS now!

[RobertEarl]

3. Hey, watch out

If Hillary gets wind of this she's liable to try and take away Bernie's socialist moniker and jump in the front seat to drive.

I'm not saying Hillary is socialist... but she kinda is.

[onehandle]

4. When did Senator Obama label himself a Socialist?

As his party, on his Congressional record, and in his Wikipedia entry?

Wee bit of a difference.

[cui bono]

8. Why did you qualify that as Senator Obama? Did President Obama label himself a Socialist?

[Avalux]

5. Well, Bernie calls HIMSELF a democratic socialist, he's proud of it.

And it's not the same thing as a socialist. Anyway, it's difficult to compare the two, because Obama was labeled socialist as a way to denigrate him.

[Nay]

41. I think the OP's post is saying that the constant tossing around of the word "socialist" to refer

to Obama, over the past 8 years, has normalized the word. It doesn't matter that "socialist" is different from "democratic socialist," or that it has been incorrectly applied to Obama and correctly applied to Sanders, or that one term is applied derogatorily to Obama and the other term in praise of Sanders. It only matters, in the public's shallow mind, that the word has been bandied about enough times that the sting has been taken out of it by sheer repetition. Repetition, as the Nazi propagandists told us, is the key. In complete ignorance, the howling nuts in the Republican Party have repeated the word "socialism" enough times to normalize it in public discourse.

[NanceGreggs]

6. Obama was labelled ...

... as a "socialist" - along with a lot of other things - by the GOP. He wasn't elected twice because voters actually believed he was a socialist and were voting for him on that basis.

That's a bit different (actually, it is vastly different) from BS labeling himself as such, and expecting voters to vote for him despite that self-declaration.

While many do not see the word "socialist" as a negative, many, many people still do. To say it "no longer works ("officially", no less) as a political slur" is naive at best. It still works extremely well with millions of voters, especially Republicans.

But don't let little facts like that get in your way.

I'm a bit curious as to the use of the word "official" of late here on DU. Exactly who determines what is "official" and what is not?

[bigtree]

11. exactly the point

...what's inevitable now is for our party to be represented as advocating socialism by so many advocating his campaign. It's not something I look forward to either defending or rejecting. More importantly, we're not being helped by the candidate or his supporters who seem to be insisting that the label is a legitimate one; the position itself legitimate and acceptable in our political system.

I'm not there and I don't think the majority of our party is ready to call their politics socialist anything - but that seems to be where the Sanders campaign is taking us, intentionally or not.

Is it intentional? Is Sanders' intention to define our party's economic policy as economic socialism?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

13. It's easier to get people to support "socialist" programs if you call it something else.

Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, and Medicare are essentially socialist programs but are held out as insurance.

[bigtree]

17. no, Social Security and UI are insurance, not socialism

..the programs you cited don't fit the definition.

SS and UI aren't available unless you pay into them and benefits come from a pool of money.

I really don't want to tell you what I think of this argument you're making, but it's a familiar one. Socialism is an economic system in which the government owns the means of production; when the government owns or directly controls businesses in order to centrally control an economy.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

18. But respectfully these are semantic arguments...

If a person is employed he has to pay into Social Security and Unemployment Insurance whether he wants to or not...

And by the definition of socialism you are employing there are few socialist nations...For instance in Sweden 90% of the property is privately owned .

My point is it is counterproductive to get hooked on labels. I subscribe to John Lennon's definition of socialism, "If socialism means the government should make sure Granny gets her teeth fixed then I am a socialist."


If you are asking me if we should hold ourselves out as the socialist party my answer is an unequivocal no. We should hold ourselves out as what we are and what we always were; a party that believes in markets but is buttressed by a robust safety net.

[bigtree]

20. well that's your opinion

...which isn't one that's shared by the majority of people who identify as Democrats.

Is auto insurance 'socialism?' Is Obamacare? I think arguments that they are is political sophistry characteristic of the right wing's cynical take on our government's efforts.

The problem is that many Americans are 'hooked on labels' and if you think that's insignificant to garnering support, you haven't been paying attention. I reject the label of 'socialism' or socialist because it does not accurately define my politics, our government programs, or, I believe, the Democratic party I've affiliated myself with since I was old enough to understand there was a government (nursery school when Johnson announce he wouldn't run and Nixon was projected to win).

[DemocratSinceBirth]

21. I eschew labels but if you put the proverbial gun to my head and ask me to label myself ...

I eschew labels but if you put the proverbial gun to my head and ask me to label myself I will label myself as a liberal.

Again:

If you are asking me if we (the Democratic party) should hold ourselves out as the socialist party my answer is an unequivocal no. We should hold ourselves out as what we are and what we always were; a party that believes in markets but is buttressed by a robust safety net.

[NanceGreggs]

19. I am astounded by the naivete ...

... of those who think that Sanders' self-identification as a "socialist" is not a liability, even among many staunchly liberal Democrats.

Pretending that "the "s-word" officially no longer works as a slur in American politics" actually goes beyond naivete; it is demonstrative of a total lack of cognizance of the long-ingrained distaste many Americans have towards the word "socialist", and what images it conjures up in the minds of many.

(Besides, I am still trying to figure out how a word can "officially" no longer work. Is there a committee somewhere that determines such things?)

"I'm not there, and I don't think the majority of our party is ready to call their politics socialist anything."

Well, exactly. The Bernie supporters seem to believe - and this is evident in so many of their posts - that whatever is good enough for Bernie is automatically acceptable to the American voters at large. They don't seem to want to face up to the reality that their worship of the man isn't shared by the rest of the populace, and that labeling himself as a socialist is not about to catapult the voting public into adopting his political views on the matter.

"Is it intentional? Is Sanders' intention to define our party's economic policy as economic socialism?"

One has to wonder what he IS thinking in that regard. For myself, I admit that I DO have a problem with his running on the Democratic ticket despite the fact that he still refuses to be identified as a member of the Party. If we Democrats are not good enough for him to be one of us, and we are simply the "party of convenience" when it comes to his presidential aspirations, I have a HUGE problem with that. And I know I am not alone in that opinion.

[JustAnotherGen]

46. Plus 100 Nance

And this?

For myself, I admit that I DO have a problem with his running on the Democratic ticket despite the fact that he still refuses to be identified as a member of the Party. If we Democrats are not good enough for him to be one of us, and we are simply the "party of convenience" when it comes to his presidential aspirations, I have a HUGE problem with that. And I know I am not alone in that opinion

[McCamy Taylor]

7. Bernie calls himself a socialist. Huge difference.

[cui bono]

9. Bernie calls himself a Democratic Socialist. Huge difference.

[FSogol]

10. Here's an article by Sanders on his .gov page where he refers to himself as a Socialist 4-5 times.

Not once does he call himself a Democratic Socialist.

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/must-read/sanders-socialist-successes

[bigtree]

27. he's good at telling us what it's not, but all over the place explaining what he means by it

..it's like 'Finland?' Really? That's the explanation?

Why is there a need to group what are essentially Democratic initiatives under a label of 'socialism,' even if it's got 'Democratic' in front of it? That's not something which is part of our Democratic party's history, is it? Is there some point in the history of our party where we resolved to be 'Democratic Socialists?'

That may be fine for Bernie Sanders, but it's too hokey for me. He's running for president under the Democratic banner, so I'd expect he'd make clear some degree of separation from whatever he was trying to convey as an independent from Vermont and the candidacy he expects us to rally around today. Or, maybe not. Maybe he expects voters to swallow his 'Democratic Socialist' philosophy whole. It's going to take more than pointing to Finland to square that circle.

[Adrahil]

12. WEll, he didn;t call HIMSELF a socialist. That's a bit different, I'd say. nt

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

31. Doesn't matter.

People's views on the word itself have changed dramatically. It doesn't scare most Democrats any more, and most Republicans just think it means 'Democrats' now.

[Adrahil]

32. I don't agree. I think it would drive away independents.

I think Bernie would lose the general election, and that's why I support HRC.

I think you're living in a fantasy world if you think this country is ready to elect a socialist. It's not. Not yet.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

34. They're not ready to elect Eugene Debs. But they are ready to elect Bernie.

The word is a word, but they'll SEE what Bernie means when he calls himself a socialist. And what they'll see is that he means things that they agree with. Police, roads, libraries, co-ops.

Just any socialist? No. Bernie specifically? Yes.

[Adrahil]

38. If you think so, go for it. I don't.

If gets the nomination, he will have my full support, but I dont think he's the guy to win it for us.

[Sheepshank]

14. He didn't call himself a socialist.

as we have seen, name calling and dirty politicing don't always work to the advantage on the one slinging the mud. In fact it often has the opposite to the desired effect. People will often rally to help those unfairly labelled and attacked.

[brooklynite]

15. Barack Obama didn't call HIMSELF one...

...ever so slight difference.

[Ken Burch]

22. If it didn't work as an insult...how is it going to hurt

when a candidate claims it and makes a positive case for it?

Basically, capitalism is becoming incompatible with most of the social changes we need-the wealthy are no longer willing, as at least a good chunk of them were in the 1950's and 1960's, to provide enough tax revenue to maintain a decent level of social welfare(we can't cut much more in terms of social spending and still retain any right to call ourselves a decent society), or to accept that working people should have any legal protections in the workplace, let alone retain the right to organize unions.

Yes, the rich have been moderately good on a few group rights issues, but only those that weren't a threat to their profits. You'll notice that the 1% are still funding the election of state and federal politicians that do all they can to block equal pay legislation or ENDA, because the passage of those would open them to hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of equal pay lawsuits from women, LGBTQ people and POC(the equal pay provisions in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 being too weak to matter).

[Adrahil]

40. You assume the average independent voter will actually listen to him.

They won't. They will react to sound botes. Lots of these folks support the elements of Obamacare, but oppose Obamacare. That's what we're facing.

[SalviaBlue]

16. Good point!

[AZ Progressive]

23. Socialist groups don't think that Bernie's a socialist

In fact, they seem to hate Bernie for being friendly to the Democratic party, as well as being relatively friendly to the American government (compared to them) as well as being relatively pro-Israel.

Just do research at wsws.org and socialistworker.org and you'll see for yourself.

[Ken Burch]

24. Indeed. Then again, those two groups...

...are basically the real-life modern-day equivalents of the "People's Front of Judea" and the "Judean People's Front".

[bigtree]

25. then what does Saanders intend to convey with the label

...is it just something he's toying with or is it some sort of homage to the stuff he was mulling over in his '72 essays?

I don't really know of any group or organization within our party which is known as 'Democratic Socialists.' Did he intend to start a movement based on his interpretation of the term?

I really haven't been able to get a full explanation for the label without running into some right-wing site which wants to put the worst possible spin on it. Also, there's been a coyness from Sanders and his supporters about the label, as if we should just chill and accept it. Point me to the best explanation you can find in print so I can get closer to understanding what it's all about. Right now, it's not something that I'd associate myself with, but there has to be something other than, 'hey, it's not really socialism' as an explanation.

[Ken Burch]

28. The groups listed there are not the exclusive owners of the "s word".

They are Trotskyist sects and nothing more.

What I think it's about is the idea that the dignity, needs, hopes, and ideals of the people should be valued by society at least as much as, if not more than, short-term gain for the few.

It's not about nationalizing everything under the sun. It's about encouraging social ownership of sectors of the economy, about helping people save jobs or create new jobs by forming co-ops, and about a general sense of encouraging social cooperation and shared respect among peoples-and about ending want and powerlessness among some and a sense of entitlement and arrogance among others.

Is any of that really so terrible?

[bigtree]

29. I think it's sophistry on the politician's part to throw out such a loaded term

...and let people load whatever meaning they want onto it - that expectation is also fraught with folly.

But look, I like your explanation...

"a general sense of encouraging social cooperation and shared respect among peoples-and about ending want and powerlessness among some and a sense of entitlement and arrogance among others."

What I don't understand is the effort by the senator to define all of that apart from our Democratic party politics - and then again, here he is running under the banner of our party. Will we be 'Democratic Socialists' in elevating him to the presidency? Striving for that? Aspiring for our party to embrace a principle, his notion of Democratic Socialism?

Maybe I'm thinking too hard, but it's certainly not something I'm familiar enough with right now to adopt and defend as a Democratic party principle.

[still_one]

26. President Obama also never referred to himself as a socialist. He was also called "hitler,

communist, radical Islamist", and a wealth of other slurs which had nothing to do with who President Obama was.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

30. Yup, lots of people LIKE socialists now.

And the more they hear about what American 'socialists' of any stripe stand for, the more they like what they hear.

[99Forever]

33. It's a hoot to now watch the Clinton Fan Club...

... trying frantically make "socialist" into a boogieman label.

Fucking Hillarious!

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

35. It's 'forward... to the past!'

They're trying to regain the scare factor it had 50 years ago, when it was conflated with Communism.

[99Forever]

37. I had someone else telling me that having a self-identified conservative...

... posting here, was "a breath of fresh air."

I mean, REALLY?

Cripes, could these people be any more blatant?

[bigtree]

39. no one is 'scared' by the label

...more like ambivalent about labeling their own politics and political support with such a loaded term. When has the Democratic party claimed to be 'socialist' anything?

[bigtree]

36. why don't you try explaining it

...instead of pretending like it's just a 'Hillary' invention.

'Hooting' isn't cutting it. It just makes you look cagey and defensive over it. 'Hilarity' and ridicule seems to be the dominant response from the most vocal of those defending Sanders here. Much more would be accomplished by providing real and usable information from which would be voters can access to support and defend him should he become nominee.

I'm not a 'socialist' anything. Neither is the Democratic party he's chosen to use as his platform in this election. If Sanders' campaign happens to agree that it's a 'hoot' to associate his politics with 'socialist' policy, perhaps he should laugh his way back to the Senate.

[Darb]

43. That's because it IS a boggeyman label.

Clue in buddy.

[99Forever]

44. Sounds exactly like a Teabagger clue to me.

And you are most definitely NOT my buddy.

[Darb]

47. You just jumped the shark, and didn't clear the tank.

If you think a socialist can get elected in the US then why isn't Bernie running as a socialist like he did for senate?

Because he knows it doesn't sell so well outside of tiny Vermont. I dig Bernie, I just know what the climate in the US right now and who runs the other party. Even if he is elected, it will be the same if not worse than Obama. The Repukes will burn down the house rather than let anything happen. At some point, we have to realize that inevitability.

I will vote for Bernie if he is the nominee. I think Hillary is the better choice to head up the ticket right now. Coattails is one of my main reasons.

FYI, I couldn't give a flying fuck if you are my buddy, so dangle.

[99Forever]

48. Tailgunner Joe called.

He wants his dumbass red scare back.

And, BTW

Fuck the shark.

[Darb]

42. Voters are not all stupid. "Called" a socialist doesn't mean "is" a socialist.

Bernie is a socialist and will get clobbered with it if he gets the nom and it will stick because it is true.

[Stellar]

45. Actually, that's a word that has Republic0ns showing their fangs.

Socialist, Liberals are words they repeated to you over and over again as if they thought you would say - stop calling me a socialist. I never understood what it was I was supposed to say when they called me a socialist. I felt no shame even when they called Obama a socialist.

I guess it must be their way getting back at me for calling them a tea baggar.