Well, with the race in New Hampshire tightening, it looks like we might soon be moving to the next phase. It looks like the main points of attack on Sanders are as follows:
1. His age (this one is more lurking at the moment, but it is there).
2. His need to create a diverse coalition.
3. TEH SOCIALISM.
As for (1), I think his vigor on the campaign trail and VP selection will go a long way to addressing that objection. As for (2), well, I hope the large crowds and the ongoing work with BLM and other constituencies will blunt the force of that criticism.
That leaves the third objection, "socialism." Follow me below the orange wedding invitation calligraphy for more.
Claire McCaskill has already signalled that this will be a line of attack in the Democratic primaries, and we know the GOP consider this word so horrible that it will be their ticket to the White House.
When someone puts a label on you, you have several choices:
1. Refuse the label. ("I am not X.")
2. Accept the label without qualification and turn the tables. ("Of course I'm X, what are you?")
3. Accept the label with qualification. ("I'm X, but a Y type of X.")
4. Challenge what the user thinks label means. ("You think that X=A, but really X=B.")
The right wing has been expert for a long time at creating toxic clouds around certain words and making their opposition run from them. Politicians who ran away from these words (e.g. "liberal") may have considered their actions pragmatic, but the downside to letting your opponent choose the language with which you define yourself is that you look weak and uncertain about your own identity.
We're all well aware that the term "socialism" is, for a certain number of American voters, a word that requires no further reflection. Socialism = bad. They expect every candidate to be in category (1) above: total refusal of the term. In fact, they don't even expect a candidate to have to respond to being a socialist in the first place. Socialism is a one-word argument for them. Sanders has called himself a democratic socialist for a long time, so for these voters, that's it. Game over.
Sanders is not going to be employing strategy (1). Strategy (2) is bold, but on its own risks confirming the misconceptions of voters. Sanders uses (3) when he clarifies that he is a "democratic socialist" of the sort that have created a high standard of living in western European countries. Implicit in this analogy is our fourth strategy, an argument about the meaning of the term.
Here is a comment from HuffPost, posted just today:
You could be a Socialist if you or your kids went to a public school (100% subsidized by others).
You could be a Socialist if you or your kids went to a state college(up to 85% subsidized).
You could be a socialist if you ever received unemployment, food stamps or Medicaid.
You could be a socialist if you are a farmer who has been paid not to grow crops, received federal aid, crop subsidies, department of agriculture training and research, price supports, grazing on government land . In other words every farmer/rancher is a socialist.
You could be a socialist if you were ever in the Military (the largest socialist enterprise in the world, housing, clothing, food, transportation, entertainment, education, shopping all furnished), were a defense contractor or government employee.
You could be a socialist if you get a child tax credit or pay less taxes because you have kids that cost society more.
You could be a socialist if you drive on public highways, go to airports, work in a port, go to public beaches and parks.
You could be a socialist if you go to a public Hospital (80%), or use public utilities.
You could be a socialist if drink milk or eat dairy products as their prices are heavily subsidized.
You could be a socialist if you have subsidized federal flood insurance, FEMA raised or repaired your house or gave you a trailer to live in or paid for a motel room.
You could be a socialist if you got a small business loan.
You could be a socialist if you get a child tax credit such that others help pay for your kids.
You could be a socialist if you are collecting soc security or are on Medicare.
You are a Socialist if you live in a red state , which on average get back 50% more in FED money than they pay in, the largest redistribution in the history of the world, all Greece's w/o such Blue state welfare flowing to them.
There is no modern economy since 1900 that has not been a mix of socialism and capitalism. If you are not a socialist, you are a liar! LOL..
Our Constitution is a socialistic document as in “To provide for the General Welfare of the People”
--comment from John Hill, of Cape Coral, FL
That's already a powerful start, and I'm sure we could add to that list. There's also the case of upside-down or bizarro socialism, the kind we don't want, in which the large banks socialize their losses through bailouts but keep their bonuses and profits.
A few days ago, Lawrence O'Donnell had Tim Pawlenty on his show, and Pawlenty tried the one-word "Socialist!!!" argument, and O'Donnell very deftly pointed out that insofar as Pawlenty accepted programs like Medicare and Social Security, that he too is a socialist -- "unless you've come on my program," O'Donnell concluded, "to come out in opposition to Social Security and Medicare."
Another one-word conservative argument is "redistributionist!" Such an argument overlooks of course that wealth has already been redistributed to the very top. If anything, they are the redistributionists, and a socialist position is more like anti-redistribution! :)
Last point about this term: it is politically important not just to list the societally responsible benefits of a more socialistic system, but to make the point that these benefits are earned by the people, the vast majority of whom work hard and play by the rules, even when those rules seem out of whack. The woman who called out Jeb Bush a couple weeks ago on Social Security said very pointedly, "I earned that." Conservatives love to paint socialism as a transfer of goods from the hardworking to the lazy and undeserving, so the key is to insist that socialism is simply the other half of the social contract and that the people have long been keeping up their end of the bargain, as any graph of GDP will show.