Updated 2 years ago
I have OCD, so I’ve been cleaning out the last 6 years of Facebook posts (Jesus I really need to stop that!) and converting the best posts to blog posts. This is one of the best.
I used to deride socialism with all my liberal friends, calling “democratic socialism” an oxymoron.
I made fun of Bernie.
Laughed at their wanting a free lunch.
I stubbornly clung to the original meaning of socialism. I pointed out that what works in tiny northern European countries, with their unified culture and work ethic, wouldn’t work in a massive multicultural country like the US.
I pointed out Sweden was hard core dog eat dog capitalist until the 70s, even during the Great Depression, which they got out of quickly.
I linked the wikipedia definition of socialism (public ownership of the means of production!), and threw Venezuela in their faces.
I’m one of those people that, like Paul Ryan and Ted Cruz, was really into Ayn Rand as a teenager and never really got over it.
Then Trump was elected.
I’ll say it here. Ironically, Trump has done more for democratic socialism than any Marx-reading Fifth Column could ever hope to do, and has done more to destroy people’s faith in capitalism as nothing more than a greasy way corrupt and murderous people stay in power. Turned moderate independents like myself away from the GOP forever. Yeah you lost me. I don’t trust your gang of out of touch geriatric screwups to ever do anything right, ever again.
And also ironically, Ayn Rand would have despised Donald Trump as an anti-intellectual crony capitalist tariff-producing charlatan (although to be fair she would have turned a blind eye to his, ahem, sexual escapades.) She even disliked Reagan, who makes Trump look like a communist.
This is to me the largest damage the president has done – discredited an entire half of the political spectrum, and destroyed a whole young generation’s faith in capitalism. THE NEXT GENERATION TO RUN THIS COUNTRY.
Luckily for the Gen Xers and Baby Boomers – after the next depression many will desperately need democratic socialism when they are at the end of their lives.
I’m still not a democratic socialist, but still Neutral Good. I look forward to their reign.
Thirty year cycle:
1930s: FDR and jazz.
1960s: JFK, LBJ and rock & roll.
1990s: Clintons and electronic music.
Get ready for the 2020s.
