By Mabra Hoelyfield
After Joe Biden’s Super Tuesday performance, he appears to have the momentum that can propel him to the Democratic nomination. There is some evidence that some of the voters that prefer policies proposed by Bernie Sanders voted for Biden because they believe that he has a better chance to beat Trump. At least part of the reason is that he chose to label himself a Democratic socialist.
In a matchup against Sanders, Trump won’t mention Democratic. He will probably mention socialist and go straight to communist. Actually, most Americans don’t know the difference. During the long cold war with Russia, Americans were programmed to fear communism and socialism. The government used that fear to justify wars in Korea and Vietnam and military actions in Cuba and several Central American countries.
If you can pin a negative label on your opponent, you don’t have to get into a serious discussion about their policy proposals. The Republican base had a deep dislike of President Obama. After the passage of the Affordable Care Act, the Republicans immediately labeled it Obamacare. In the following midterm election, every Republican candidate ran on their promise to repeal Obamacare. Their base who was signing up for the Affordable Care Act turned out in large numbers to repeal Obamacare. As a result, the Republicans were able to take control of the Congress. Eventually, they realized that the Affordable Care Act and Obamacare were the same. In the following election, the Democrats let them know that the Republicans were trying to take away their health care and were able to take back the House of Representatives.
In 1935 and 1939, President Roosevelt passed his famous New Deal legislation which included social security, widows’ benefits and unemployment compensation but he never used the term socialism. The Republicans that opposed the legislation did use the term but the people were desperate for help and were not concerned about labels.
Bernie Sanders’s use of the word was unnecessary and a self- inflicted wound from which he might not recover.
