I say and write this a lot; in fact I was writing it in a comment and decided to put it in a diary.
This morning I ran across this Fox News chyron on Twitter:
Just looking at the chyron, this is what we hear and can expect to hear from the Trump campaign and Republican campaigns generally from now until … well, probably forever. We’ve heard Moscow Mitch praise itself for thwarting the House Democrats’ “socialist agenda” by letting hundreds of bills die on its rancid vine. We see and hear Trump campaign ads calling Biden an agent or a puppet or an avatar or a whatever “of the far left.”
Here in the Daily Kos community, we don’t need to have it explained that when Republicans say “socialism” (or “socialist”) they’re cynically deploying a meaningless scare-word whose sole purpose and function is to frighten [white] people who don’t have wealth, power, privilege, influence, or socioeconomic advantage, into agreeing — and voting — to keep those things right where they are: in the hands of the wealthy, powerful men, corporations, and industries that own the GOP.
But I think Democratic candidates need to hammer this home a lot more often, and a lot more forcefully, to people who aren’t necessarily clued into the foregoing scam, especially those who still cling to the demonstrably-absurd and fact-free perception that Both Sides® Are Just As Bad.™ So, let’s be clear and unequivocal about what Republicans and Fox News mean when they talk about the “socialist agenda” (or the “far-left agenda”) of Democrats in general and/or of Biden in particular: it means, “holding the wealthy and powerful men, corporations, and industries that own my Party accountable for the harm they cause to the public, workers, consumers, and the environment.”
Indeed, this is what DB55’s diary from yesterday was about, Biden’s remark that it’s time to “put an end to shareholder capitalism” because corporations and industries “have a responsibility to their workers, their community, to their country.” According to Republicans and Fox News, that is a “far left,” “socialist agenda.”
That is the fundamental, critical, and non-rhetorical difference between the two Sides®; Americans have a clear and simple choice as to who the federal government should, and does, work for. A Republican government works and will continue to work for the wealthy, powerful men, corporations and industries that own that Party; a Democratic government works and will work for the public, workers, consumers, and the environment. The Republican “agenda” is to allow its owners to run roughshod over everyone and everything else; the Democratic “agenda” is to prevent that — which is what Republicans and Fox News mean when they talk about “socialism” or a “far left agenda.” And it’s why they’re so terrified, and want the public to be terrified, of a Democratic-controlled federal government.
When people ask me, and when I ask myself, why I vote Democratic instead of Republican, this is what I tell them. Never mind the GOP’s overt religiosity, which is a deal-breaker for me in any event; never mind its atrocious governing record in my lifetime, its cruel and ruinous “policy” agenda, its cynical, bad-faith politics, and its hypocritical moral depravity. The GOP doesn’t work for me or represent me in any sense that I can fathom; the Democratic Party, to whatever degree, does. But I believe the government should work for the public, workers, consumers, and the environment, not for the wealthy and powerful men, corporations, and industries that own the GOP.* If that’s a “socialist (or “far left) agenda” then sign me up.
[* — It may certainly be argued that the Democratic Party also has owners whom it serves in government, and that those owners include wealthy men, corporations, and industries. To the extent that’s true, it merely highlights another meaningful difference between the two parties; they both have owners, in that they both depend upon wealthy men, corporations and industries to run campaigns and get elected, but once elected the GOP doesn’t even try to work (and actively prevents the government from working) for anyone else, whereas the Democrats at least try to work for the public while keeping their owners’ needs and requirements in mind. The point is not, and can never be, that wealthy men, corporations and industries are inherently bad, shouldn’t be represented, or don’t deserve representation in the federal government; the point is that governing requires prioritizing and compromising between the competing needs and desires of various constituencies. One party can do that, the other one can’t; one of them tries, the other one doesn’t. That’s the point.]
