Is America ready for a Socialist candidate?

That is one of the finest examples of Orwellian doublespeak I have seen on this board.

You should get a prize for that.

 

Boy, the "free stuff" meme never gets old does it. Still as original and insightful as the day it was coined even after all these years of reflexive regurgitation.

Did you know that subsidies to corporation far outweigh social programs for the poor?

Funny that.

 

So a quick survey of the latest public opinion polls I could find suggest that for 70% of Americans fixing health care a major priority in the upcoming election. Also, Democrats tend to be more concerned as do people uncovered by current private system and/or Medicare:

https://thehill.com/policy/healthca...percent-of-americans-support-medicare-for-all


https://www.people-press.org/2019/0...-education-and-security-all-near-top-of-list/

And for Americans left uncovered by the current system:



"The first proposal, “making private insurance more available and affordable and providing tax subsidies so low-income workers and small employers can afford it,” is supported by 90 percent of the public, while 5 percent are opposed. The second, “setting up a new public program to provide coverage to anyone who doesn't get health insurance through their employer,” has 82 percent support, while 10 percent oppose it. The third, “requiring all employers, including small employers, to provide health care benefits for their employees,” has 71 percent support, while 18 percent oppose it. The fourth proposal, “expanding the Medicare program to cover all Americans,” has support from 69 percent of respondents and is opposed by 21 percent."

https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/full/10.1377/hlthaff.9.4.149


Hmmmmmmm....maybe Americans really do support a socialist candidate but just don't know it or are cowed into believing all the doom and gloom about "freedom from liberty or totalitarianism.

 

No one becomes a socialist. Everyone's a socialist until they grow up and earn their own money. There may be a point in time that one realizes one's a socialist, but no one becomes a socialist. Socialism (freedom from liberty) is something that we should provide to young children as we teach them to take authority over and responsibility for themselves. Socialism in one of age is an immaturity. It is a "Peter pan" syndrome. It is a desire to remain in the socialism of their youth.

 

Yes, and only threats to pack the court kept them from being ruled unconstitutional...

 

America isn't ready for the socialists this cycle. Partly because Comrade Bernie hasn't been fully open as to exactly what sort of socialist he is. For all we know he's a full blown commie pinko...

 

One of the things that makes the USA exceptional is that we are constituted to prioritize the protection and defense of individual life, liberty and property before and above the general welfare. It is a rare exception that the pursuit of the general welfare should ever violate individual life, liberty or property.

 

Do you mean like the kind that would honeymoon in the soviet union?

 

Has the political Left dumbed down the educational system enough -- while assuring the young that they DESERVE things -- to make the nation ready for a socialist candidate? Yep. Last year a survey revealed that roughly 75% of Dem Party voters are lusting for a socialistic nation . . . and apparently the real-time example of Venezuela means nothing to them. See? Massively dumbed down educational system.

The problem, however, is that 75% of Democrats does not equate to fifty percent of the voting population. So while the nation may be ready for a socialistic candidate they are not yet ready for one to become president, and so Bernie won't become president in 2020.

 

I'm no fan of FDR, but to be fair it was extraordinary circumstances, and even doing the wrong was better than doing nothing. In the end almost all of his unconstitutional programs disappeared pretty quick. The system really does work...

 

It’s way too early. I’m thinking an actual Democrat will emerge between the Independent and Republican or Sanders and Bloomberg. No. Not the mushy ill defined pragmatic ones.

As for Sanders it all depends on how he manages his message. The electorate is more open to Bernie than than “our” corporate and political elite.

 

Socialism is unamerican therefore America can never be ready for it.

 

All of those Presidents had an America at the peak of it's industrial power and that was what made their policies work so well. America at it's best got up and went to work every day. At the risk of being seen as a chauvinist it was mostly an America with single earner households and stay at home moms.

 

FDR was, at least, as much harm as help.

 

Socialism goes against human nature. It requires a massive police state to enforce its goals. We’ll never be ready.

 

Dumbed down aside, both the Ipsos and Pew polls I posted show otherwise. Interestingly a majority of those who had coverage were generally satisfied with their health care plan but still felt better, more efficient options need to be legislated.

I think you are right that Bernie may be the candidate if he can overcome opposition from the Democratic party bosses but whether he can beat Trump who will try to make the issue a choice between the evils of socialism and the glories of capitalism is another thing.

We shall see.

 

link?

 

Apparently America is ready for a socialist candidate.

Nevada has spoken.

If he wins in South Carolina is there any doubt that he is blowing away more centrist opposition?

Course the other candidates are so darn weak but still. With Bernie's an admitted democratic socialist, I think this says America is realizing the limitations of the unfettered model of capitalism it has held has the natural order of things for so long.

 

Trump/Sanders cannot draw a starker contrast.

 

True that!

If Bernie does win the nomination the attack ads on socialism and taxes will truly be something to behold. The debates should be fantastic.

 

I guess feeding our poor to keep them from starving or going to prison due to stealing to feed their family is just too evil to do. Because it is evil socialism!

And even though a country creating a Commons was done by civilization long before marx was born somehow it is called socialism . Even when the original definition of socialism is no capitalism and private ownership of business but the State owns all business .

We have never lived under socialism but rather capitalism. Yet we have had a Commons. We didnt call having a Commons socialism until some people didnt want their taxes used to keep the poor from starving . Then it became evil socialism even when it was capitalism that was creating the money to feed the poor

We should call being decent human beings as being socialism . Calling decency an evil.

Tell you what! Lets ship all jobs to china so no one can earn money but the people who shipped the jobs to china and then make it against the law to be poor for only criminals are poor and then execute those bastards! Would that get rid of this evil called socialism but doesnt meet the definition of genuine socialism! Would this make us happy with justice being served?

 

No America is not ready for the State to own all means of the production of goods and services and then distributing those things to the people .

But is America ready for social security insurance that most pay into their working lives? You bet your arse !

How about Medicare? For those that dont have a job that supplies health insurance ? Well sure.

We educate our people via public education because we dont think an illiterate nation is a good idea at all and many cant afford a private sector education especially with a low wage service econony providing most jobs.

What if you could educate your people in state colleges by putting less than a 1 percent tax on wall street transactions to finance it? Would having a better educated nation be a good idea given it is needed to keep people in work ? Yes it would be the intelligent thing to do . If you wanted a better nation and cared about such things.

 

State owning all means of production is state capitalism. Workers owning means of production was what Marx had in mind though that is harder to implement that he may have imagined especially in a modern economy.

What you are advocating, I think if I may put words in your mouth, is democratic socialist policies working in concert with a modernized more progressive form of mixed capitalist economy that stops serving the interests of the political elites and starts working in the interests of the American people.

Yeah! Why can't the people who are satisfied with their health insurance keep that and then provide a public, user-pay option for everyone else?

I think the average citizen in America is totally ready for this once they get over all the fearmongering!

Polls seem to agree.

 

The "myth of social mobility: is a colossal myth in and if itself.

There will always be millions of knowledge challenged people who enthusiastically support all kinds of pie in the sky ideas and proposals.

 

So you are saying that the only way a society can exist is the current paradigm of rule and exploitation by corporate, Wall St. military industrial forces and that any aspiration to build a more egalitarian society based on the interests of the people is "pie in the sky"?

So, we should just let the planet and all it's resources be plundered to exhaustion for the sole benefit of a hand-full of billionaires and international corporations who take more wealth than half the planet combined and let those folks live in poverty and despair in the de - industrialized wastelands that are left behind?

If social mobility is a "myth" then why was the era of the greatest social mobility also the era with the most comprehensive social programs in the United States?