Quote of the Day

In the last two presidential elections, many young voters embraced Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) Democratic primary campaigns [of 2016 and 2020] as an attempt to break through the limits of corporate politics. Despite his popularity, however, the machinations of the party machine proved highly resistant to Sanders and his social democratic politics. In 2024, with the exception of progressive Marianne Williamson, Sanders-style democratic socialist politics will apparently not even be a primary option for Democratic voters.

Tellingly, earlier this year the House of Representatives passed a resolution sponsored by Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.), a supporter of the far-right “Freedom Force” caucus, denouncing “the horrors of socialism.” The resolution passed only thanks to the support of 109 Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), and other party leaders. House Minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) took the nuanced position of voting for the anti-socialism resolution while also denouncing it as “phony, fake, and fraudulent.”

What a pathetic state of affairs! Unfortunately for the red-baiter types, socialism as the proverbial swamp creature of U.S. politics is a tired, and increasingly irrelevant, theme in the public imagination. But there is a more serious discussion of socialist perspectives that should be taking place, starting with a question posed by [socialist scholar] Nancy Fraser and other socialist thinkers. Why can’t major industries be run according to a rational, democratically determined plan, instead of left to the inherent chaos of “free market” capitalism?

“This whole question of what to produce, how much, and what to do with surplus that is profit, these should be fundamental political questions,” concludes Fraser. “Socialism is the democratization of the decision making about all those questions. Socialism is essentially egalitarian in vision.”

We could use more egalitarian vision in politics. Instead, it’s as if political power in the United States exists now not for democratic representation or to improve society, but as just another elite mechanism for the extraction of wealth from working Americans. This is neoliberalism stripped to its essence, a system that asks working people to demand nothing, and expect even less. It’s a broken system.

– Mark Harris
Excerpted from “The U.S. Needs a Socialist Movement
to Break It Out of the Two-Party Choke Hold”
Common Dreams
August 10, 2023

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Heather Cox Richardson on the Origin of the American Obsession with “Socialism”
• Martin Luther King, Jr. and Democratic Socialism
• “We Must Challenge the Entire System”
• The Biblical Roots of “From Each According to Ability; To Each According to Need”
• Progressive Perspectives on Marianne Williamson’s Presidential Run
• More Progressive Perspectives on Marianne Williamson’s Presidential Run
• Jen Perelman: Quote of the Day – November 17, 2022
• Cornel West on Responding to the “Spiritual Decay That Cuts Across the Board”
• Ralph Nader: Quote of the Day – January 20, 2022
• A Deeper Perspective on What’s Really Attacking American Democracy
• Will Democrats Never Learn?
• Cornel West: Quote of the Day – December 3, 2020
• Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Quote of the Day – March 10, 2019
• Hope, History, and Bernie Sanders
• Christopher D. Cook: Quote of the Day – February 17, 2016
• Jonty Langley: Quote of the Day – August 17, 2011