It’s stunning to me how much impact the word “socialism” had on the 2020 election.
You would think America was on the verge of becoming Venezuela. We are not. Yet socialism is one of those loaded words that when you throw it around out of context, it scares the hell out of people. When you read about it in other countries like in Europe or Canada, though, it is not that scary.
What I find interesting and frankly alarming is that while tens of millions of our fellow Americans fear socialism, they somehow cannot see the authoritarianism of Donald Trump. A man who in real time has undermined our free democratic elections. Who refuses to concede he lost the election. Who attacks our intelligence agencies and public health officials. Who has fired military and homeland security personnel. And who has called for militias to “liberate” states from federalism. Yet rail about socialism his followers do—and loudly.