In the previous post I wrote, “It [socialism] sells … to a small slice of our over-credentialed but grossly ill-educated population.” Could persistent ignorance in the face of trillions spent on education be a major factor for socialism’s appeal today? I don’t know, but socialism has risen from an underground of cranks to a near takeover of one of our major political parties. Bernie Sanders is about to achieve what Eugene Debs failed to do in the early 20th century: be a standard bearer of a major party.
Eugene Debs had to quit the Democratic Party to run five times for president as the candidate of the Socialist Party of America. Democrats wouldn’t have him. John Dewey, the guru of education from his lofty perch at Columbia University, said that he was a socialist but advocated not using the term because of its ill-favored reputation with the public.
Socialism was associated with the worst sort of violence in the early years of the labor union movement. The Haymarket Square Riot (1886) and Homestead Strike (1892) still seared in the public’s mind.
Today, socialism is about to be served up as the other choice on the ballot, in spite of its perfect historical record of carnage. Legions of Bernie bros and glib half-wits in Congress are openly advocating the hot mess. Socialism may lose, but is its time coming? Are we, to alter a bit Moynihan’s famous quip, defining social, political, and economic deviancy down to the point of making the horrible acceptable?
This election may be a first. To borrow from Neil Armstrong on the moon, is this election a small step for socialist man and a giant leap for socialist mankind? Absent a resounding electoral slaughter, we may be in serious trouble from this election forward.
Warning!
RogerG