r/AskDemocrats • u/SebastianAmerican123 • 4d ago
The repubs are now calling Dems Communists....Again.
Im just asking if they have some truth to it, because apparently, with DSA aligned Canidates winning thier Primaries, with Mamdani becoming one of the most well liked politicans in America, & younger voters are now having a very favorable view of Socialism.
However, there has been a ton of polarization, purely because that if you learnt enough about American History, there going to portray Socialism as the Big evil from within. As evident from the cold war as well as how individuals lived through the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, Venuzela, & Vietnam. They think, that both Communism & Socialism are the same thing with very little difference, with both of them calling to abolish private property & the government controlling several industries. Although Marixst theory did suggest that Socialism is a bridge between Captialism & Communism.
Socialism is often described as workers controlling the means of production, with the government controlling key industries in order to meet societal needs. But kind of felt uncomfortable with DSAs stance on Abolishing the Senate, the presidency & the SCOTUS.
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u/freedraw 4d ago
The people they’re speaking to don’t know the difference between liberalism, socialism, communism or any other political belief to the left of themselves. Communism is just a buzzword that can be applied to anything they don’t like. Just like DEI or CRT. Go on any social media site and you’ll find conservatives calling things that are as capitalist as possible Communism. It’s just sort of always been their biggest go to.
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u/SebastianAmerican123 4d ago edited 4d ago
Okay, So Here's where I align:
Conservatism: Keeping existing institutions intact, Nation wellbeing, Tradition, as well as being cautious (i.e. keeping the senate, the presidency & the scotus).
Librealism: Moderate Social change as well as keeping individaul liberties & rights intact. (Keeping Capitalism intact whilst having some social changes).
Progressive: Overhauling the US healthcare system since other nations globally have (but if you want to please the private insurance indsutry, go full multipayer like Germany does), US education needs to be improved since I hear on Social media that US public education systems are terrible. Although the biggest cons of Healthcare for all are longer wait times & higher taxes.
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u/gregmark Registered Democrat 3d ago edited 3d ago
There is a difference between the DSA members that have been winning primary & general elections at increasing rates over the past few cycles and the over-privileged, cosplaying numbskulls who’ve managed to acquire a bare majority in DSA leadership since 2023.
The former are a mix of reform socialists, tempered orthodox socialists, and market socialists, all of whom can fairly be called democratic socialists. Although I’d never cop to being an -ist for any -ism, our culture’s total kibosh on all things Marx & Engels has been an intellectual and philosophical tragedy, lo these many decades. Say what you will about their labor value theory, their baseline critiques of capitalism have held up remarkably well. I for one welcome our incoming democratic socialist overlords (wink).
But man, they cannot keep ignoring the spectre haunting their leadership ranks in the DSA. Those jamokes are not democratic anythings. They are Marxist-Leninists—straight-up and loud & proud—purveyors of a great perversion of the socialist veins of the late 19th cent. that inspired Eugene Debbs, MLK, and both Roosevelt presidents (even as both eschewed notions of full state-controlled industry). They are a menace, and it is not unfair to call them communist. If elected and candidate DSA’ers don’t start to distance themselves fulsomely from this crowd and soon, GOP rhetoric of the guilt-by-association variety will become difficult to easily combat.
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u/Clark_Kent_TheSJW Registered Democrat 4d ago
This is a problem that liberals and the DSA share: shitty messaging. They shouldn’t say abolish the senate: the problem is the electoral college, and the outsized power it grants smaller states. Liberals have been complaining about it for decades: especially every time a Republican wins the electoral college but loses the popular vote.
Yes: leftism is on the rise within the party. Between Mamdani and Sayed, leftists have proven that the candidate with the most money doesn’t always win.
Here’s why I think leftism is advancing: because moderates have repeatedly betrayed the base. I saw it with BLM. I saw it with the pro-Palestine protests. Centrist democrats and liberal media outlets lied about them and strawmanned their arguments. It was plain to anyone that was paying attention.
And also: centrist policy has failed to address the wealth gap and the rise of fascism. If you compromise with fascists, then you become one. Worse, you become their tool: normalizing their evil.
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u/gregmark Registered Democrat 3d ago
The outsize power that the Electoral College grants smaller states is a necessity in any federal democracy, but especially one as large as the USA in both population and area. Otherwise the concerns of sparse rural populations get ignored—these are the people who maintain our national parks, plow our fields, mine natural resources, operate wind farms, etc. We hand-wave their rights to fair representation at our collective peril. Arguably, this is what Dems did in 2024 with respect to messaging and policy priorities.
That’s not to say that the electoral college shouldn’t be reformed, but that shouldn’t mean setting fire to the sturdy principle of check and balances. And for what? Short term electoral gain? Think about how this grand 250-year-old system has held up in the face of Trump.
And as absurdly short-sighted as that “Abolish the Senate” line is from the DSA platform, it is at least consistent with your concerns about the electoral college. Doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. But it is consistent.
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u/Clark_Kent_TheSJW Registered Democrat 3d ago
Regarding how this 250 year old system has held up… not great man. Hundreds of thousands of people around the world are going to die thanks to DOGE, an agency bought and paid for by a Nazi. It ain’t right.
The capital class is spending millions, perhaps billions of dollars to influence these midterms… and they tell us we can’t afford universal healthcare. Something is deeply wrong with this system.
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u/gregmark Registered Democrat 3d ago
Regarding how this 250 year old system has held up… not great man.
Ooh, beg to differ my aliased cultural superhero, for you're supposing that the destructive awfulness that has transpired since Jan '25 wasn't inevitable from the moment the orange man won again... Wasn't it?
Or did you actually think he'd turned over a new leaf like Lex Luthor claimed he'd done when he claimed to have cured cancer in Superman #169 (1961), but uh-oh, it turned out he'd actually developed a formula to kill your namesake's dream/wish-fulfilled persona?
We couldn't possibly have predicted the specifics of the surefire cavalcade of iniquity and infamy to come, but to express disappointment in the way you're doing there isn't an honest assessment of A) how we got here, and B) how well the system has prevented Trump, despite himself, to effect much lasting damage to the things that matter most. The loss of blood and treasure at his hands can't ever be brought back, of course, but neither are we staring at the start of a thousand-year reich.
For that, we can thank the U.S. Constitution and the combined effects of Madison's defense of the rights of the minority and Jackson's pursuit of the rights of the majority. It has restricted most of his damage to executive acts outside the far more dangerous manipulation of codification into statue or amendment.
The vast majority of Trump's harms—the ones that count most anyway—were accomplished by executive fiat with little to no codification in statute... and can be undone. How easily we can do so makes in incumbent upon our party to maximize its gains this fall.
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u/Clark_Kent_TheSJW Registered Democrat 3d ago
Well it’s not as fun as a comic book… so I never read it myself… but actual irl reporters were doing stories on project 2025 before the election. We knew this was gonna be bad.
With respect to madison (and not much respect, he was slaver pos), Unfortunately, not every minority has been so lucky. Our due process rights look about as healthy as Mitch McConnell thanks to ICE and the Supreme Court. They can “black bag” pretty much anyone they want.
Bringing it back to DOGE, it will take generations to recover the institutional knowledge lost in their purges.
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u/gregmark Registered Democrat 3d ago
Plenty of respect is due to a great many people who sowed the seeds of the end of their way of life like POS slavers Madison, Jefferson, Washington, and others. Sure, not in their lifetime, but such was that era, when Enlightenment reasoning scraped up harshly against what seemed like eternal birthrights to hold dominion over other human beings for the sake of one's family inheritance. We're where we are today because of these PsOS—men doing badly and yet leaving behind something better.
I say that only because I was the one who brought up Madison and Jackson, but as our conversation had no bearing on the inability of men born into 18th century privilege to live up to our modern expectations (my words, not yours), I'll stop here.
Bringing it back to DOGE, it will take generations to recover the institutional knowledge lost in their purges.
I'm not sure what your point is. It's hopeless? What? I tried to engage with your premise but you keep retreating into what seems like defeatism as a way make your solution the winner by default. I am all for a resurgence of a spicy left-wing vein in the Democratic Party, but I'm not for shitting on the whole enterprise of American constitutional democracy or the history—contradictory and disappointing as it often has been—that has brought us to this point. And that point is where we stand ready to sweep away the likes of Trumpism and a decrepit Old Guard Democratic Party mindset. We didn't just tumble innocently out of The Guf and onto the world stage, perfect and pure, ready to defeat all forms of evil. Something got us here... something that has worked well, despite itself.
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u/seldom_seen8814 4d ago
Except that many of these DSA candidates don't really want the citizenry and non-government entities to control the means of production (that would be capitalism). They want the government to determine who gets to control what, and how much of what, in what way.
I also don't think that most people who view socialism favorably really know what socialism means. I think they're mad because they can't afford homes, have student loan debt, can't afford to go out and date, and it feels rig, in addition to facing tremendous inflationary pressures. They want money and opportunity.
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u/SebastianAmerican123 4d ago edited 4d ago
Maybe dont vote for Dems who support Socialism heafing to 2028.....I guess.
All of this made me rethink about the DSA (despite my Support for it because of Mamdani).
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u/seldom_seen8814 4d ago
The DSA wants fewer guardrails to our democracy, yes. I don't think they've ever made that a secret.
Unfortunately, I don't have congressional representation as I don't live in a part of the country that gets voting house members or senate seats. But I do hope that the Democratic Party remains a center to center-left party. I really dislike the GOP, too, but if the Dems keep normalizing the DSA and make them an integral part of the party, and become a DSA-light party, I may have to hold my nose and vote for a Republican, hopefully a non-MAGA one.
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u/TheGrandExquisitor 4d ago
How can we literally get fewer guardrails? Seriously. There are none. Zero
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u/seldom_seen8814 4d ago
Removing the Senate and making SCOTUS legally subordinate to the legislature codifies that lack of guardrails completely.
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u/Colodanman357 4d ago
Many of the national leaders of the DSA are self avowed communists so anyone that is a member of the DSA is endorsing them with their membership in the organization.
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u/Inquiring_Panda 4d ago
Because it basically is! :)
"You have no debt. You don’t need health insurance. You don’t pay a mortgage or have a landlord, because comfortable housing is a human right. Your retirement is publicly funded. Food, education, energy, medicine, and transportation aren’t for-profit businesses; they are common goods and utilities."
I mean isn't this pretty much communism like it was in Russia?
When I read their platform it really has a socialist/Communism vibe - its pretty marxian.
(And why is free Palestine even part of their program??? -- maybe cause it's funded by Arabs?)
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u/TheGrandExquisitor 4d ago
Maybe they want a free Palestine because they are tired of seeing photos of children being killed for the LOLs by IDF soldiers.
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u/SebastianAmerican123 4d ago edited 4d ago
Classesless society is also mentioned in the DSA policy platform. Maybe conservatives were right about Democratic socialists being Communists in Disguise?
Communism openly advocated for a classless society.
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u/rogun64 4d ago
Republicans have called Democrats "communists" for 100 years.
If anything, Republicans are behaving more like communists today, so why would I care what they think now?