are remotely socialists at all. They farthest left of the farthest left (on an American crazy shewed to right scale versus the rest of the advanced Western world) are just bog standard social democrats. None of them advocated for state control of the means of production which is fundamental to all accepted long held socialist beliefs. Bernie himself has said over and over he is not in favour of that. Yet they think (with a fair amount of hubris) that they can simply re-label a couple hundred of years globally accepted definitions (accepted both at academic and common everyday levels) and make it their own. It will never work in uber reactionary America.
The prime driver of all this is the poison-pill DSA. Democratic Socialists of America. It is a completely mixed bag and has genuine, actual socialists and even some actual full-stop communists (mostly Trotskyites but even some revanchist Stalinists.) in it. It does have basic social democrats as well, but it is too nebulous and ultimately pushes terribly destructive (electorally) things. Some of them helped AOC win in 2018 (they poured out in large droves and worked the fuck out the district) and thus AOC (who has distanced herself a bit) felt obligated to a point. Hopefully she and the small, small handful of others who actually do claim the dem soc label pitch it into the dustbin of history where it belongs. The label cannot be changed nor can it be rehabilitated in the horridly under-educated US, where the average person has zero problems with instantly conflating socialism with full-stop Marxist-Leninist and then Stalinist communism.
Two other organs that are extremely problematic are the online magazines and sites Jacobin and Current Affairs. Both ARE actual socialist orgs, and they openly state that they know full well that Bernie and the rest are not socialists, but ARE stepping stones to far more radical, real socialists getting elected and then pushing a genuine socialist agenda. They calculate that the new vanguard's actual socialist agenda will make the tame (and it is tame, compared to the rest of the advanced western world, regardless of how much people inside our party buy into RW framing and call it 'far left' or radical or socialist, and also regardless of how much the RW vermin lie and scream) social democracy advocated by Bernie or AOC, etc seem normalised, mild as hell, and thus can be passed. THEN they plan to do the same thing all over again, but this time use truly radical programmes to lay down a much further left marker, and then try and drag baby steps socialism, or 'socialism-lite' across the line like they did (well attempted to do) with the bog standard, mild social democracy of AOC and Bernie. Lather, rinse, repeat. It is madness, it will never work in the US.
I live in a social democratic governed nation, Sweden. I know what I am talking about when I speak of comparative politics. Sweden is so NOT socialist, we actually have a far more vibrant capitalist sector than the US does (in terms of productivity per actual hour worked, upward social mobility, far higher wages on the low end, etc etc.) It also is very highly regulated (and I argue is so vibrant BECAUSE OF, not despite the regulation) and works synergistically hand in hand with our expansive social safety net and welfare state. It is NOT (like so many in the US think) one or the other. You need both to have a truly healthy nation state, especially one with extremely fair wealth equality, which is the number one statistic that determines the overall health of a nation state at almost every level. The US has extreme wealth inequality, and it is ripping it apart. It has to be rectified or it will eventually cause the breakup of the union (from so many different angles it would take days to lay out.)
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