Reply to How the hell did a socialist get elected in Manassas?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Do people actually know what a democratic socialist is?  It’s not Bernie Sanders.  It’s not someone who believes in high taxes for several social programs. It’s not the scandanavian way of doing things.  It’s very close to a pure form of communism.  I highly doubt the man who ran as a democracy if socialist is a true one.  [/quote]

Looking at the web site of Democratic Socialists of America, it looks like their specific proposals are in the Sanders/Scandinavian style - what some would call Social Democracy as opposed to Democratic Socialism.  But they also seem to admire Cornell West and others who consider capitalism fundamentally illegitimate in a way post WW2 European Social Democrats usually do not.

Some of this is the legacy of cold war era US left politics - when the old Socialist Party of the US divided between Social Democrats USA ("sedusa") and the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee. DSOC.  SDUSA was close to the AFL-CIO when that labor organization strongly supported the Cold War, and the Johnson Admin during the war in Viet Nam. DSOC was dovish on both, and generally more militant.  But was never really about the abolition of private property by democratic means. So in the US democratic socialist has come to mean a somewhat more militant social democrat, without the cold war baggage.  Meanwhile the legacy of SDUSA is almost forgotten - some former SDUSA types decided hard line foreign policy was more important than their social ideals, and became neoconservatives. To the extent there is a real legacy of SDUSA, IMO its found in the left wing of the 3rd way - Clintonist camp.  [/quote]

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