Why are Americans warming to socialism? Because capitalism has failed them
The S-word is something of a red herring – what many voters want is a change from the dismal status quo
When you think about hotbeds of socialism, Texas is not the first place that comes to mind. However, according to a CBS News/YouGov poll last month, 56% of Democratic primary voters in the Lone Star state say they have a positive view of socialism while only 37% have a favourable view of capitalism. It is a similar story in California; more Democrats feel positive about socialism than about capitalism.
Does this mean the two most populous states in the US are ready to embrace revolution? No. But this poll reflects a couple of hugely important shifts in the US’s political landscape and national psyche.
First, there is Texas’s move to the left. The traditionally Republican state has become notably less conservative in recent years thanks to a growing Hispanic population and the migration of young, out-of-state liberals to its growing tech industry. Texas is predicted to be far more competitive in the general election than it has been in the past; it won’t be easy, but it is no longer implausible that the state will turn blue. Whether Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders has a better chance of making that happen, however, is hotly contested.
More broadly, the poll reflects a step-change in US attitudes towards capitalism. It would be inaccurate to say that the US is embracing “socialism”, because the word has become amorphous: boomers associate it with Stalinism, millennials associate it with Scandinavia. In many ways, the S-word is a red herring. The country has not so much warmed to socialism as it has cooled on capitalism. This is hardly surprising when you consider how the latter has failed ordinary Americans. The poorest men in the US have the same life expectancy as men in Sudan. Maternal mortality more than doubled between 1991 and 2014. The middle class has shrunk. People are desperate for an alternative to an increasingly dismal status quo.
Capitalism is central to the US’s national identity; conservatives view the country’s move towards socialism, as personified in the rise of Sanders, as nothing short of an existential crisis. “America v socialism” was the official theme of this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), an annual gathering of US conservatives. “Our view is it’s not capitalism versus socialism, because socialism isn’t just about economics,” a CPAC organiser told attendees earlier this week. “Socialism … gets to the very core of violating the dignity of the individual human being that has God-given rights. And that’s got us pretty fired up.”
Centrist Democrats are equally fired up. They see Sanders’ success as an existential threat to the party and are fighting harder to defeat him than they are to defeat Donald Trump. The polls may suggest the US is ready for a president who calls himself a democratic socialist, but the establishment clearly thinks otherwise. Parallels have been drawn with George McGovern, a senator who advocated for universal health care, railed against corporations and had enthusiastic support from the young. McGovern beat the odds and won the Democratic nomination in 1972; he lost the general election to Richard Nixon in a landslide. Parallels have also been drawn with Jeremy Corbyn. We all know how that turned out.
I am not sure there is much to be gained by these comparisons. For one, income inequality in the US was far lower in the 70s than it is now. Also, Sanders does not have Brexit complicating matters. But if we are going to invoke cautionary historical precedents, why not look at 2016, when Hillary Clinton, the most centrist of centrists, could not beat Trump? Honestly, I don’t know if the US is ready for a socialist president, but it may be more ready than it has been before.
•Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist
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