That’s misleading and deliberately misses the commenter’s point. The DSA explicitly rejects authoritarian models of socialism (USSR, DPRK, etc).
The red-scare-fueled conflation of democratic socialism with basically Stalinism is largely what drives the general disfavorability of “socialism” in these sorts of opinion polls.
It’s not like people were asked, “Do you favor ordinary people having a real voice in their workplaces, neighborhoods, and society? Do you favor a higher minimum wage, universal health care (Medicare for All), strengthening labor unions, and increasing the power of working people while weakening the power of corporations?”
People broadly support those things, but would very likely hesitate to call that democratic socialism (which, spoiler: those are the DSA’s core tenets).
It’s like when people say they hate obamacare but they love the ACA. They don’t know what they’re talking about, but they have a well worn heuristic of “what does my in-group say?”
Or it’s like that spongebob meme with patrick and the wallet
“So you want workers to be treated with respect” : “Yep”
“And they should be paid a fair wage for their work”: “Sounds good to me.”
“And vital services like health care should be provided to everyone” : “Of course”
“So you’ll vote for the left wing candidate” : “No, I don’t like left wing policies”
It’s not like people were asked, “Do you favor ordinary people having a real voice in their workplaces, neighborhoods, and society? Do you favor a higher minimum wage, universal health care (Medicare for All), strengthening labor unions, and increasing the power of working people while weakening the power of corporations?”
Those are not socialist policies, I’d say they’re more social democratic than socialist.
That’s my point. People overwhelmingly like DSA policies, but are hesitant to say that they would consider voting for a DSA candidate because of their (incorrect) association with socialism.
McCarthyism has done such a good job of muddying the waters in American politics that any policies labeled as “social-anything” are immediately associated with USSR gulag bread lines or Maoist famine.
A not-so-insignificant number of Americans believe the Nazis were the same as the Communists because their party has “socialist” in the name.
That’s misleading and deliberately misses the commenter’s point. The DSA explicitly rejects authoritarian models of socialism (USSR, DPRK, etc).
The red-scare-fueled conflation of democratic socialism with basically Stalinism is largely what drives the general disfavorability of “socialism” in these sorts of opinion polls.
It’s not like people were asked, “Do you favor ordinary people having a real voice in their workplaces, neighborhoods, and society? Do you favor a higher minimum wage, universal health care (Medicare for All), strengthening labor unions, and increasing the power of working people while weakening the power of corporations?”
People broadly support those things, but would very likely hesitate to call that democratic socialism (which, spoiler: those are the DSA’s core tenets).
It’s like when people say they hate obamacare but they love the ACA. They don’t know what they’re talking about, but they have a well worn heuristic of “what does my in-group say?”
Or it’s like that spongebob meme with patrick and the wallet
“So you want workers to be treated with respect” : “Yep”
“And they should be paid a fair wage for their work”: “Sounds good to me.”
“And vital services like health care should be provided to everyone” : “Of course”
“So you’ll vote for the left wing candidate” : “No, I don’t like left wing policies”
Those are not socialist policies, I’d say they’re more social democratic than socialist.
That’s my point. People overwhelmingly like DSA policies, but are hesitant to say that they would consider voting for a DSA candidate because of their (incorrect) association with socialism.
McCarthyism has done such a good job of muddying the waters in American politics that any policies labeled as “social-anything” are immediately associated with USSR gulag bread lines or Maoist famine.
A not-so-insignificant number of Americans believe the Nazis were the same as the Communists because their party has “socialist” in the name.
Uh weren’t they considered communist? (Which is still a misrepresentation of what communism is)
My point was hes a part of the DSA so he self identifies as socialist.
When I think socialist countries I think of Nordic countries not the friggin USSR.
YOU are not the average voter. You’re likely much more informed than the average American voter.
When the average American voter hears “socialism”, they think of “the Ruskies” or the “Chi-coms”, not Scandinavia.
They think Scandinavia is the thing that sits on your printer that converts your documents into pdfs.
The Nordic countries aren’t socialist they are capitalist countries with strong welfare states.
Socialism is the democratic ownership of the means of production, the nordics are still very much capitalist.