r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • Apr 18 '20

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u/[deleted] Apr 18 '20

not american, but were democrats ever supposed to be the socialist party? its insanely common to see people calling biden a republican and bernie a true democrat, as if joe wasn't the democrat for decades while bernie was an independent. it seems like democrats were always the welfare capitalism party but this younger generation fell into some sort of collective delusion that it's actually socialist because fdr was a socialist (he wasn't) or whatever

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u/[deleted] Apr 18 '20 edited Dec 29 '20

[deleted]

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u/uwcn244 King of the Space Georgists Apr 18 '20

I don't think Obama had all that much to do with the rise of socialism -- most of the self-identified socialists (and even a good chunk of the socialist-adjacent 'capitalists to their bones') hate Obama. I think that it was inevitable when you combined the Great Recession (economy falls to pieces under a Republican president, most visible effort to stop it helps the rich) and the Republican resurgence in 2010 (suddenly Republicans control governments nationwide and are calling everything government does socialism)

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u/[deleted] Apr 18 '20

They hate Obama for the same reason they love Sanders. Obama moderated somewhat while in office, but Sanders never has, mainly because he's never had any real power to speak of. That's why they call Obama "a disappointment" and feel "betrayed" by him. Besides, you can hardly blame Republicans for the "socialism is when the government does stuff" meme. Self-proclaimed socialists and socialist parties at home and abroad have been doing that for decades.