Sarah Palin’s red-state socialism: Why the right is more pinko than you think

[DonViejo]

Socialism already exists in America — and not always where you'd expect, Democracy Collaborative experts tell Salon

ELIAS ISQUITH

After experiencing a brief uptick of support in 2010, likely as a response to what was a particularly nasty phase of the Great Recession, a recent poll from Gallup suggests that Americans’ relationship with socialism is returning to its traditional mix of antipathy and incomprehension. According to a Politico report on the poll from earlier this summer, a meager 47 percent of Americans “would vote for a socialist if their party nominated one.” In terms of public antipathy, only a hypothetical atheist came close.

So when the Democracy Collaborative’s Gar Alperovitz and Thomas Hanna say that socialism is alive and well in the U.S., as they recently did in an Op-Ed for the New York Times, you cannot accuse them of parroting conventional wisdom. But their argument is not just a cheap grab for contrarian clicks; it’s premised, in fact, on an assessment not of what is likely to come, but what’s happening already. And it’s happening in places like Alaska, Texas and the Deep South — not exactly where you’d first think to look.

Recently, Salon spoke over the phone with Alperovitz and Hanna. Besides their Op-Ed, we discussed how American-style socialism might be packaged to survive in America’s historically socialism-phobic political culture, and how these early signs may one day be looked upon the same way as the decades preceding the New Deal. Our conversation is below and has been edited for clarity and length.

You make the case that “American socialism” exists today. What does it look like in practice?

Gar Alperovitz (GA): The obvious thing is that in communities all over the country, there are publicly owned utilities — 2,000 of them — that are just common, conventional ideas. That’s the most obvious place in which you see public ownership. In red states, you see it in ports, cooperatives, hospitals, and hotels owned by cities. Much of it is very conventional, available, and ordinary, but it doesn’t get much press. Public ownership — profits going the public, city or state — is quite common, and we think that’s significant. It needs to be talked about, how it might be approved and how it might be drawn upon, reformed, and built upon in other areas.

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http://www.salon.com/2015/08/05/sarah_palins_red_state_socialism_why_the_right_is_more_pinko_than_you_think/