In the
break between games of World Cup soccer today I tuned into Katy Tur’s program
on MSNBC. She had David Weigel of Axios on talking about the upsurge of support
for democratic socialist candidates in American cities. I’m writing here
because Katy Tur seems to invite comments on her show only on X and I
refuse to subscribe to it. So here’s my two cents to what I think is an
informed audience of influencers.
Weigel did
a pretty good job overall, but then Katy asked him what’s the difference
between socialism and democratic socialism? That is a great question that could
have given rise to a discussion of the broad and rich intellectual tradition characterizing
socialism.
In his
response Weigel talked about how there are some democratic socialist who wish
to get rid of capitalism, or eliminate the prison system, but for now they mostly
focus on concrete policies that can make our daily quality of life better: things
like affordable housing or accessible health care access. But Weigel never situated
democratic socialism within in the broad spectrum from Soviet-styled state
socialism to the thoroughgoing welfare state characteristic of the Scandinavian
countries. Nor did he emphasize the democratic piece and that
democratic socialists don’t want to do away with competitive elections or take
away our civil liberties. And far be it for Katy Tur to press him on these
issues.
In my post
from November 27, I analyzed the elections of Zohran Mamdani in New York City
to those of Katie Wilson as mayor in Seattle and Girmay Zahilay as executive of
surrounding King County.[1] All of them are
progressives and they each ran for office as Democrats. But while Mamdani and
Wilson ran as avowed socialist, Zahilay did not.
I went on
to discuss the way that democratic socialist and social liberals (which
I would call Zahilay) have very similar policy preferences. They both talk not
only about groceries and gasolene (mainstream liberalism), but also housing,
healthcare and transportation.
MSNBC wants
to see itself broadly as the progressive alternative for cable news. But like
the moderate liberals of the Democratic Party establishment, the network fears a
robust debate on the left between mainstream liberals and those to their left
who speak more directly to the concerns of the young, the working class and BIPOC
folks.
Let the
battle for the soul of the Democratic Party and the future of the country continue!
[1] “Left Populism and Democratic Socialism," https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/5729996108959536995/3720053984822575411
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