Can Socialists Win Elections in the U.S.?

[marmar]

from In These Times:


Can Socialists Win Elections in the U.S.?
Kshama Sawant of Seattle showed socialist victories are possible. Will they spread?

BY Bhaskar Sunkara and Micah Uetricht

“Indian-origin Kshama Sawant is first elected socialist in U.S.,” read a headline from The Times of India, the world’s most widely circulated English-language daily. This was testament to the attention Sawant’s campaign for Seattle City Council has generated—and to how much of America’s socialist heritage has been forgotten.

Sawant isn’t even the thousandth elected socialist in the United States, much less the first. At its peak a century ago, the Socialist Party of America polled at 6 percent nationally, had two representatives in Congress and boasted hundreds of state and local legislators.

But for more than a generation, socialism has been virtually invisible on the American scene. Its return in several high-profile local city council races—Sawant’s in Seattle, Ty Moore’s in Minneapolis and Seamus Whelan’s in Boston—has been surprising. Especially given the genesis of this push: not just widespread dissatisfaction with the economy and growing social inequity, but the efforts of a small Trotskyist party called Socialist Alternative.

Socialist Alternative first emerged as “Labor Militant” in 1986. Its activists were inspired by the example of the U.K. socialist group “Militant tendency,” which sought to enter the British Labour Party in order to radicalize its rank-and-file. A decade later it would use its position on the Liverpool City Council and elsewhere to lead an aggressive campaign against the Thatcher administration’s cuts to social programs. .............................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://inthesetimes.com/article/15960/can_socialists_win_elections_in_the_u.s/

[politichew]

1. Hopefully.

A two-party system of Democrats and Socialists is my dream country.

[brooklynite]

7. So, you'd allow Democrats to thwart your Socialist utopia if they won an election?

[politichew]

22. I don't believe in Utopias and I'd be voting Dem more often than not. nt

[Starry Messenger]

27. Why would Democrats thwart a jobs program and higher wages?

National health care, social security, etc. When did that become a utopia to thwart?

[brooklynite]

30. The post said that the optimal model was a Democratic Party and Socialist Party...

therefore, there has to be some difference between the two. Add to that, the Democratic Party is not and will not be Socialist.

[Starry Messenger]

34. I'm curious what you see as the defining differences.

Your post seemed scornful of Socialist goals, so which ones are you feeling bound to thwart?

No, the Democratic Party is not Socialist--it adopted some aspects of the Socialist program when they realized they had to in the Depression. That's been unspooling for years now though.

Should be interesting to see which way the frog hops in the next few years.

[brooklynite]

40. I'm not a socialist...neither are most Democrats...neither are most Americans

I believe in a robust social democratic safety net within a capitalist economic framework. "Real" socialism hasn't been proven to work anywhere else, so I'm not inclined to change now.

[dipsydoodle]

2. Since you've mentioned Liverpool

this is more or less covers what happened there : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Hatton

Make of it what you will.

[KamaAina]

3. Bridgeport, Conn. had a Socialist mayor for decades

Here was Jasper McLevy's approach to snow removal: "God put it there. Let God take it away!"

[FrodosPet]

6. Fiscally conservative Socialists, balancing budgets...

...not hiring armies of public workers?

Whodathunkit! LOL!

----------------------------------------------

McLevy and the Socialists

As early as 1936, left-wing socialists, such as party leader Norman Thomas, accused McLevy, a member of the Old Guard, of only paying "lip service" to socialism. Ultimately, these disagreements led to McLevy taking the Connecticut Socialists out of the National Party briefly in 1938 and permanently in 1950.

McLevy was a member of the conservative wing of the Socialist Party. He was a member of the Provisional Executive Committee of the Committee for the Preservation of the Socialist Party established in 1934 in response to the defeat of the Old Guard faction at the 1934 Detroit Convention of the Socialist Party. When this faction lost in its bid to defeat the radical Declaration of Principles adopted in Detroit in referendum balloting of the SP's rank and file, the more conservative Party members broke away to form the Social Democratic Federation. McLevy joined them and disaffiliated his state party from the national Socialists. This caused friction between McLevy and other local Socialists who stayed with the party, including journalist Devere Allen, a close associate of party leader Norman Thomas, and state representative Jack Bergen.

[brooklynite]

8. I'd kick him out, Socialist or not...

[KamaAina]

33. This was before WWII

the automobile had not yet completely taken over.

[Brigid]

4. Not until we get rid of the "Steinbeck Syndrome" . . .

That is endemic in this country. We are not temporarily embarrassed millionaires!

[me b zola]

31. K&R n/t

[Eleanors38]

5. Google "Sewer socialists Milwaukee" and see how it was done.

A "progressive is a socialist with his brains knocked out."

Lobbyists never approached them because they were incorruptible.

Last mayor was Ziegler, 1960.

[brooklynite]

9. In answer to your question...no.

Yes, self-described socialists can win in small, ideologically liberal areas (Vermont, fyi, is slightly smaller than Charlotte, NC), but will never be competitive in battleground States or in the nation at large. And if any "Socialist" actually carried out socialist policies ("in which major industries are owned and controlled by the government rather than by individual people and companies&quot , they'd be kicked out of the liberal districts as well.

[socialist_n_TN]

11. We'll see what happens after a few more years of ......

the neo-liberalism of BOTH parties. That is if there's anything left of the country after a few more years of neo-liberalism.

[DBoon]

32. As opposed to how things are run now

Where the government is owned and controlled by major industries

[liberal_at_heart]

10. after 30 years of Reaganomics, the people are ready for something different.

There is a pent up demand for a populist party.

[Enthusiast]

43. That's fer damned sure.

[demosincebirth]

12. Wishful thingking. No way

[OnyxCollie]

13. Kshama Sawant: A Conversation with Kshama (September 30, 2013)

https://archive.org/details/scm-365196-kshamasawantaconversationwith

[LWolf]

14. If we run enough of them, long enough, and campaign hard enough,

eventually some will win.

And that would be a positive move for the nation.

[liberal_at_heart]

15. if I'm going to contribute to a self fulfilling prophesy it's going to be this, not the one

where I don't vote for progressives because I was told they can't win. Of course socialists can win, if enough of us vote for them. Congress has a 9% approval rating. There is plenty of room for progressives and socialists to get elected.

[LWolf]

38. YES!

That's how the right wing has done it; just kept going until their message somehow became main stream. We can take that message back.

[YOHABLO]

16. if we're capable of de-stigmatizing the word SOCIALISM

SOCIALISM.

[liberal_at_heart]

17. I really liked it when Roseanne ran for president. She wasn't afraid to use the word socialism.

She had a lot of really intelligent and articulate things to say.

[Brigid]

18. The younger generation may be able to help with this.

I hear they just don't have the negative view of the term "socialism" that previous generations have had.

[FarCenter]

19. Isn't Bernie Sanders, Senator from Vermont, a socialist?

[happyslug]

20. Yes, but he sits with the Democrats so it confuses some people

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/

Senator Sanders calls himself a Socialist, but has always run as an Independent NOT as a member of a Socialist Party:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders

[FarCenter]

26. Yes, and Bernie probably isn't a Trotskyist Maxist.

Kshama Sawant is a a member of the Socialist Alternative party, the United States section of the British-based Trotskyist international organization the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI). She has referred to herself as a Marxist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kshama_Sawant

[socialist_n_TN]

45. This is true. Bernie is more like PASOK in Greece or Hollande's ...

party in France. Social democrat rather than Socialist.

[MyNameGoesHere]

21. They can and probably could win

but I am not sure I would call them socialist. If we get one that calls for nationalizing essentials services, health care, banishment of mega corporations, etc. then maybe I would consider voting for them. But the ones now have one foot in social issues and the other in the free trade/market gang.
Most of these groups want to socialize capitalist ideas, instead of building from ground up socialist principles. Like putting a tiny bandage over necrotic and putrid wound.

[ancianita]

23. Look at it this way: Jesus' Second Great Commandment is the Socialism Commandment.

Jesus commands socialism.

Matthew 22: 37-40:

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

AND Socialism is the Constitution's preamble, too big a part of the the preamble sentence to the Constitution to be brushed off:

"...establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare,

It is anti-social to hate socialists.

[ancianita]

24. k & r the socialist thing to do

[Enthusiast]

44. PLUS! this one...

[another_liberal]

25. They will.

The time is almost ripe. The GOP has seen to that.

[RoccoR5955]

28. I sure hope that they do

With the plethora of neo-liberal Rapeublicons we have had in the past few years, it is certain that ANYTHING can happen, given enough money, and good press.

[Phlem]

29. Well we've tried the other and see where that's gotten us.

It's worth a try and a nice break from the insane cycle of the Turdway or Republicans.

-p

[Douglas Carpenter]

35. difficult - but possible - but more importantly - What is the alternative?

If we wish to secure a future where ordinary working people can make a living a wage. Or do we continue the long gradual slide into a third world level of wealth distribution where 5% have it quite well - maybe as much as 20% have most of the nice trappings of Middle Class life but in a permanent state of indebtedness that robs all sense of security - and the rest simply live at the level we would have once called poverty - but with almost no way out. - That is future if the situation is not reversed. I see not a shred of evidence that the mainstream politics of the sensible center are even aware of this deterioration of the American dream happening right before our eyes much less doing anything about it.

[jmowreader]

36. Maybe, if they don't use the S word

We get letters calling Idaho Gov. Butch Otter a socialist because he pushed a healthcare exchange through. As long as socialist is an insult, anyone using that term won't win election anywhere to the right of Seattle.

The socialist principles sold as Pragmatism would draw voters.

[xchrom]

37. du rec.

[Wilms]

39. ^

[Donald Ian Rankin]

41. Not on a national scale or in most locations, for the forseeable future.

There are some parts of the US where it's not impossible for a socialist to win a majority, but it most parts it is.

[Puzzledtraveller]

42. Not if the dems have any say