The political right has been using the word “Socialism” as a pejorative against the left for more than one hundred years. And to be sure, much of what has been promoted by the progressives in the US, from the Teddy Roosevelt “Square Deal” Republicans to the Franklin Roosevelt “New Deal” Democrats, aligned with much of the platform of the various incarnations of the Socialist Party over that time. Socialism was what they called every progressive policy advanced in the 20th century. Whether it was worker compensation, child labor laws, unemployment insurance, social security, or any number of other measures that were taking to alleviate suffering of the people.
And while it is easy enough to see that a government of the people ought to be able to make government work for the benefit of all of the people, and while setting in place some solid footings from which the people can strive for a better life seems to be a policy that only the most cruel and selfish would find issue with; the political right is using that word differently. After all, conservatives also rely on all of those benefits placed there by the elected government over the years. And all one has to do is review the political platforms of Republicans during the middle 20th century, which included Eisenhower’s term, as well as that of Nixon, and you’d see positions that could only be called leftest today. Whether beefing up Social Security or creating universal healthcare, Republicans of old were more like moderate Democrats today.
And of course politics change over time, and the political parties have switched places on some issues, and independently changed as well. I’ve written before of the timeline of the big flip of the parties in the US and how we ended up with Republicans embracing white supremacy and supporting the interests of the corporate and billionaire class, while the Democratic Party became aligned with labor, women, racial minorities, and the “others” so routinely maligned by the right.
And when we hear conservatives cry “Socialism!” at every turn of Democratic lawmaking, we are mostly aware that most of the common people who are saying it have little real understanding of the political philosophy of socialism; or communism, Marxism, or capitalism either, but are instead parroting the words issued by their media mouthpieces, who in turn, are saying so on the orders of the billionaires and corporations. (Of course, not all billionaires or corporations, but enough of them, and especially enough of a handful of committed actors.)
But since Roosevelt championed progressivism in the wee years of the 20th century and used government to curb corporate power, break up monopolies, and bust trusts; and then the social progress made by that second Roosevelt to pull us from the Great Depression, billionaires never stopped being a thing. It is true that more wealth was held by the middle and working classes after World War II, and the tax on top earnings was very high, regardless of which party was in power, the rich were still plenty rich. There was no communist equality of wealth created, and the rich did not suffer a lick.
Why then have they spent such earnest efforts into breaking the democracy and egalitarian trend of centrist politics over the last forty years?
It would certainly seem that some of them, or perhaps many, would like to see a less democratic Republic in this country. Many have openly advocated for authoritarian government, and even the practical elimination of effective liberal politics.
During the early days of the Franklin Roosevelt administration, a Marine Corps Major General named Smedly Butler went to Congress and in front of a microphone to the people and told of being contacted by an agent of the billionaire class with a plot to stage a military coup to replace the liberal Roosevelt with a fascist government. You see, Butler had been the go to guy when the monied interests wanted the US government to use its military muscle to overthrow democratic governments in Central America and install puppets sympathetic to their interests. They thought he was still their man. Butler had enough of it.
And do not miss the international nature of big business even in those days. Adolph Hitler had gained the support of that same class in Germany by attacking democracy as a path to political and economic security. (I will bring this up again later.)
They were the same people, in spirit if not in practice, and the same spirit lives today.
But what is it about democracy that so terrifies them? In 1933, we might understand their fears better. The Soviet Union was gaining power, and the control of industry and wealth had fallen under the control of the Communist Party. It should be noted here that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics weren’t actually socialist; nor were they communist or even Marxist, though they carried elements of each of those philosophies with them. That was Stalinism. It was nothing more than another form of authoritarian government. But the view from the west seemed to show that the results of Communism would lead to an eradication of capitalist power.
But by the turn of the 21st century, those labels were no longer valid. The Soviet Union had collapsed, and the Communist Party that held complete power in China was simply a different version of authoritarianism, but with the benefit of capitalism for those willing to submit to the party.
All across Europe the governments had built substantial economic safety nets that supported their entire populations. Universal healthcare became ubiquitous. A high standard of living for the people, substantive protections of people rights, and minimal intrusions on liberty are the norm. And none of those countries were close to the ideals of communism, nor were they an existential threat to capitalism or capitalists. And the rich were richer than ever before. Even the various modest proposals from the left wouldn’t change their lives at all.
So why did billionaire and corporations support a populist and aspiring authoritarian like Trump? Why are they seemingly willing to fund a coup against democracy? What do they see that is so frightening that they would dismantle the American Republic and replace it with an unknown?
The answer is found in racism.
To be specific, the Great Replacement Theory.
Earlier I mentioned Hitler gaining support from Germany’s wealthy industrialists and bankers. He did this with an attack on democracy and in support of fascism. He was creating National Socialism (another misuse of the word socialism) to stop the horror that democracy would bring.
What was this horror? Equality.
What Hitler proposed, and what is believed by scads of people in both political and economic centers of power, is that democracy at its core is egalitarian, and with the spread of democracy a day would come when white people would no longer hold sway over the planet. It would eventually happen that the votes of blacks in Africa would have equal value to those of whites in North America and Europe. It was this fear of loss of racial power to what they believed to be inferior races that motivated the economic leaders to adopt fascism. That, and the perceived threats from communism, which too promised greater equality.
We are all aware of Hitler’s fascination with racial superiority, and the ideal of the Arian race. Too many of us think that such a belief largely died with him in a bunker in 1945. Too many think that the democratic ideals of international unity are on a permanent upward trajectory. Too many think that deep-seated racism and racial segregation linger only in some few southern states, those of the rebellion of the 19th century. And outside of those states, is limited to the poor working whites scattered across the more rural areas of the country.
But to think this is naive.
Racism. Deep, committed racism is widespread in America, and crosses all economic lines. There is no such thing as curing racism with higher education. It has been, and continues to be true, that a decent person traveling off to college and encountering widespread racial diversity for the first time may well abandon the racial teachings of their parents and neighbors, and have a much more inclusive view of race.
But this is not universal, or even close. One can find in colleges and universities today, as was present in days past and long past, groups that advocate for racial superiority and segregation. Groups that foster these racial sentiments among other whites who enroll at those schools. Groups that form clandestine fraternities, based entirely on white power and continued hierarchy in America.
I saw a segment of a news program, where being interviewed was a former white supremacist. He made it clear that the racial superiority crowd was well represented in every economic class.
We don’t have to look too hard to see that in America. Our former President spent years attacking his predecessor with calls to prove he was a real American. Which was an absurd challenge at face, one without merit. Trump was also the man who called for the death penalty for a group of black men that were convicted of the murder of a white woman, only to be later exonerated. The real shocker to decent people was Trump’s refusal to recant his call for their execution after this revelation. And he was the same man who, with his father in the real estate business, illegally blocked African Americans from renting apartments in his buildings. He said they brought down the real estate value. And he is the same man who as President, said there were “many fine people on both sides” of a white supremacist protest against the removal of Confederate statues, that resulted on the killing of a counter protester.
A hundred years ago President Woodrow Wilson was an avowed racist and segregationist. Even FDR didn’t do much to improve racial integration. We make steps, but have not completed the walk.
The Great Replacement Theory holds that increased birth rates of minorities will cause the white people to be replaced as to the power and status that they hold.
The part about the numbers is true. Estimates say that by the middle of this century the United States will be a majority minority country. White people will still be the largest number, but they will be less than half of the total, with the combination of other races coming into majority.
And white supremacists fear this. They fear that should they fail to stop this demographic shift, they will be replaced and reduced to second class status. A position they have no problem seeing other races hold.
And the real surprise of this is to find that feelings of racial superiority are pervasive in America. People with no apparent aversion to other races catch themselves with a twinge at the thought of losing majority status. People I know who admired Muhammad Ali as a fighter and would treasure a handshake or autograph from him, find themselves instinctively rooting for the white guy in a boxing match between two unknown fighters.
People who interact with various races on a regular basis, and who even have black supervisors, will still find, while taking a deep dive into their own soul, the belief that their genetics has made them better than others.
Prior to the Civil War, a small landowner in the South could view himself on equal status with the rich plantation owner by dint of their shared condition of owning slaves. Even if he owned just one slave they were superior, and ending slavery took that away.
There is no reasonable basis for the belief in racial hierarchy. None. It is a social construction to perpetuate positions of power. But you won’t convince racists of this any time soon. And in truth, if we measure people by character, the folks who seek to apply skin tone as a mark of superiority only drive down their own status. The bare idea of assigning yourself a top rank because of your skin color is in itself a mark of an inferior intellect.
We shouldn’t ignore race in America. The reality is that racial equity and justice have not been achieved. Racism is a national sickness. And you cannot cure a sickness until you treat it, and you cannot treat that sickness if you pretend it isn’t real.
To come around again to the front of this piece I say, the entrenched racist power is afraid of democracy for exactly the same reasons it has always feared it. It puts them on equal footing and erases the illusion of the superiority that they hold.
And fascism, to use that word for the current American brand of authoritarianism, is not going to make America great. It is only going to make rich, white people great. The poor and working white are closer in situation to the poor and working classes of the other races than they are to the rich people of their own color.
But like the poor southern farmer who likens himself to his plantation ruling neighbor based on their mutual participation in “That Peculiar Institution,” many in today’s white population are guiled into thinking they share some upper status with the billionaires.
And just like in days of old, it is a lie, a trick by the moneyed elite to keep the lower classes down. The rich have been telling the working class that the obstacles to their happiness are other working class people. And until that changes, and people abandon racism, this will be the model of our future.