Let me begin by writing that this is not an attack on Kos, nor those here who don’t support Bernie. Rather, it is an attempt to explain to those who don’t know, why so many have a hard time with Bernie. Everything will be directed at Kos, but I am talking about the larger audience. First, cut Kos some slack. I’m a Bernie fan, was long before 2016. His basic honesty, his truth-telling, and the reality that he was highly factual, when most politicians aren’t, appealed to me.
In the 1930s, Socialists, real ones who believed that companies should be run by and for the workers, led a revolt against the capitalists who had broken the world’s economy. They were joined by WW I vets, farmers and unionists and they won, sort of. FDR did not support the socialist’s movement. Yeah, many will say he did, he didn’t. To have a real socialist movement, you don’t build government systems to support society, FDR’s trademark, you take corporations away from fat cat millionaires (billionaires today) and you give them over wholly to the folks working in those companies. No, the government doesn’t run them. FDR didn’t do this, that would have resulted in a number of things. One of which would have likely been civil war. He took an easier (only relatively speaking) path and developed government programs aimed at helping all Americans.
The rich, who were forced, in part, to pay for those institutions, and who saw wealth that they wanted being distributed to the middle class and poor, were pissed off. No really. They didn’t start some cabal or have secret meetings, but they struck back. They used their wealth to begin a vast marketing campaign, using religious leaders, newspapers, politicians, educators, and every means possible to label socialism and communism as evil. They succeeded in a very large way. By the time I took history in high school (1977) we no longer looked at government programs that helped so many, as good. They were evil and anything that had the name socialism tagged to it was bad, bad and worse.
Socialism and democratic socialism (those government programs that FDR started) have never been bad. They have been highly successful in many cases (certainly more so than capitalism) in helping the poor and middle class. The powerful have done such a good job of lying about and misrepresenting these programs and socialist institutions, that the vast majority of Americans believe they are corrupt and have bad outcomes. It’s a bit like the ACA. If you call something the ACA and describe it’s benefits, conservatives love it. If you call it Obamacare, they hate it. The same goes for socialism and democratic socialism. If you describe the policy and its benefits, everyone, including Democrats, love the program. If you call it socialism or democratic socialism, what the programs really are, a lot of folks hate the program. Ah marketing, how effective you are.
Kos is no more resistant to the onslaught of marketing and the selling of socialism as evil than conservatives are to the selling of Obamacare as evil. It’s sort of human nature. And the powerful have been selling the socialism is an evil trope for seventy years, non-stop. Again, they succeeded. So much so that rational folks, who should know better, will lash out at those who support Bernie Sanders in very unprofessional and hurtful ways.
Bernie is right and his vision is right. Sorry if folks don’t like that, but the marketing material they are helping to spread isn’t new.
This can’t be paid for,
it will ruin the country,
it’s giving to the lazy.
Those are the same things that Republicans and capitalists said in the 1930s. They were proven dead wrong then, and they are dead wrong today. That isn’t a guess. We’ve done this experiment before, giving the rich everything and the poor nothing, dozens of times. The results are clear. The rich get richer and everyone else gets screwed. It is only through the spreading of the wealth of this country to everyone that you get a truly healthy and prosperous country. But spreading the wealth goes against the notion that if you give the rich whatever they want, with no strings, somehow the poor and middle class will be better off. It should surprise no one that the rich love that argument.
I remind you, not only have we done the give the rich everything experiment, but we have also done the spread the wealth experiment, from the 1930s to the 1970s. We had the most robust, powerful and profitable economy in the world. So much so that many countries followed in our pathway.
Do not be surprised that you hate what Bernie represents, you’ve been told a lie, repeatedly, by the government, by the news, by your teachers and by your family, who can blame you. But you should take a minute to look at the facts, the data, the history. That information will tell you that at least democratic socialism (government programs) work and they work well, they always have with very few failures.
I’m going to make one more comment. Pay attention. The MSM and many Democrats call out Bernie on a daily basis. After a bit of digging, it always turns out that the MSM and those Democrats are wrong. They’ve lied, not Bernie. That should tell us something if nothing else does.
Last, there are several Dem candidates still in the presidential race, I am pleased by their overall honesty. I’m not a Kamala fan, but she has integrity. So does Warren, and many others. Some, less so, and a few are out and out fabricators when it comes to their records and where they started and are now. But the character of the whole pleases me. It is a rare moment where I feel that most of these folks are the best candidates we’ve seen run for the presidency since Jimmy Carter. Yes, he had character, and he paid for it.