...I have a few words to say about it...from a personal perspective.
In a couple of posts recently, it has been asserted that I would not vote for a socialist for president. I have said point blank that I would...and almost certainly will this next election, because I think Bernie Sanders will be the Democratic Party nominee (Bernie is a socialist)...and I intend to vote for the Democratic Party nominee, even if they were to nominate Satan.
Trump is so bad, I now consider ANYONE to be preferable.
Hell yeah, I'd vote for a socialist...and do so proudly.
My personal political objective is to see EVERYONE have plenty of the things needed (food, clothing, shelter, education, medical care, transportation, communication)...and at least some of the things that are wanted, but not necessarily needed.
I want that to be the case BEFORE anyone has to work in order to obtain it.
I am told my many that that cannot happen under our current economic system. So...I say switch to another system, and see if it can happen under it. I certainly am willing to give socialism a chance.
Other than that, I am waiting for the weather to change so I can get away from this goddam computer a bit more...and play some golf.
Frankie Baby,
The clearest commitment that you provide for us in your post (above) is that in the Nov 2020 Presidential election you":
"intent to vote for the Democratic Party nominee, even if the were to nominate Satan."
At the moment I believe Bernie Sanders the (democratic) socialist is a front-runner in the polls, but hot on his heels is the extraordinary wealthy billionaire, Michael Bloomberg, who was a Republican many for years but is now campaigning as a Democrat in the Presidential nomination race.
Quite a number of expert political pundits have predicted that these two men will dominate the battle for Presidential nomination.
In some ways, I am not surprised to see a full-blooded socialist like Sanders up on the candidates debate stage and doing well in the polls to date. The reason is that the Democratic Party has now been drifting leftward for well over THREE decades. The party's base today is largely comprised of so-called "progressive" Democrats, persons who have support for many of the policies that, say, Elizabeth Warren does. I personally view "progressive" Democrats as socialists for convenience. I use a very blunt binary to classify the people (adults) I meet in terms of their political world-view. For me, a person is either positioned on the RIGHT of the ideological spectrum (like a Republican or a Tory), or, they locate themselves on the LEFT (like: the "democratic" socialists, orthodox socialists, the British Labour Party under the leadership of the Marxist, Jeremy Corbyn). Here are some examples of the kind of policies that socialist Congressional Democrats are promoting today...
*Universal Basic Income
* Free Public College
* Reparations (to descendants of slaves)
* Immigration should be Increased
* Disband ICE
* Dismantle what sections of the US/Mexico Border Wall have already been erected
* Make Paid Maternity Leave available and Government Funding for Childcare
* Implement a suitable version of the "Green New Deal" resolution
* Set $ 15.00 as the minimum wage
* Medicare for All - Single-Payer Health Care System
* Decriminalise all unauthorised Border Crossings
* Expand the Access illegal immigrants have to Government Services
* Provide 3.2 Million units of Affordable Housing for Low-Income and middle-class families PLUS Mortgage Assistance for those who were victims of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC)
* (Socialist Democrats are generally strongly pro-choice regarding abortion, and also many would support the decriminalisation of Cannabis as a recreational drug)
So, if Bernie Sanders becomes President of the US in November 2020, the policies I listed above give you a reasonable idea of what kind of changes he will implement in American society.
In my opinion, having a socialist like Bernie Sanders as the 46th President of the US would be an utter disaster.
Socialism does not work and make no mistake Bernie Sanders IS a socialist. History has taught us this lesson time and again, but it seems socialism is a "zombie" doctrine that we simply cannot bury without having it resurrect itself again before too long and then start running amok down the high street. " Let me tell you, Frankie, Socialism SUX; Socialism TAKES IT UP THE ASS. Wherever you have BIG, bloated, intrusive, censorious and omnipresent government along with centralised social/economic planners dictating how individuals in the state collective will live their lives, HUMAN FREEDOM inevitably suffocates and dies. (And) a life that experiences the dying ,and then the death, of human freedom is not a life worth living. You would yearn to join the "grateful dead."
Still, Bernie Sanders is holding his position as the front-runner in the race to the Presidential nomination. It quite possible he could win the nomination and take on Trump in the November 2020 election. The Democratic Party base is now predominantly "progressive" (socialist) which will be helpful for him, but, on the other hand according to a number of recent polls, most Americans say that they would not vote for a socialist Presidential candidate. The fact is, however, that in America today there are so many social, ethnic/racial, economic, political etc; issues to consider and variables in play that it is impossible to predict at the moment which Democrat will ultimately succeed in being chosen to challenge Trump in November.
You mentioned that you hate Trump, and I presume you are not Republican voter because you say (in your post above) that you intend to automatically vote Democrat in November 2020 come Hell or high water. Before the Democratic Party drifted over the extreme political left, and was a relatively moderate organisation, it was still rotten to the core (just not crazy). Let me explain by using Mike Bloomberg as an example...
Mike Bloomberg is one of the 2020, Democrat, Presidential candidates who has been appearing on stage to debate Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden and Co. Bloomberg is a filthy rich capitalist who has a personal fortune of some $66,000,000,000, and was a former mayor of New York. Overall, the policies he is campaigning are - with one or two exceptions - moderate, especially when compared to Bernie's socialist agenda and Elizabeth Warren's somewhat milder version of it. Bloomberg was a former Republican and member of the 1%, has a history of courting controversy through conveying sexist remarks to his female employees, has been condemned enacting racist security policies, formerly hold prejudiced views of Muslims and such like. He was/is precisely the kind of figure the Democrats love to excoriate (NB: As for Joe Biden, I have enough medical training to assure you that he is suffering from the early stages of dementia and should not be taking part in this contest. Pete Buttigieg, likewise, is wasting his time, because "Mayor Pete" is a homosexual male and there is not even a remote chance that the American electorate would put a gay man in the White House. I've got nothing against gay men, BTW, it's just that at this point in time - the year 2020 - the US will not elect a gay President - NO WAY !)
Let's put aside the socialist political ideology of today's US Democratic Party, which expresses itself in Identity Politics (and movements like "Black Lives Matter"), the great shibboleth of diversity, the oppressive behavioural code of Political Correctness, egalitarianism, programs of "Affirmative Action", the passion for social justice, the hatred of White Western civilization, its patriarchal culture and its free-market/capitalist economic system, the rejection of Enlightenment reason, the rejection of the existence of the individual self and individualism in preference for the collective and collectivism and so on, and focus on the politics of the traditional,(moderate), mainstream American Democratic Party. If you think a Republican politician like Donald Trump is a loathsome creature, I explain why the orthodox Democrats are no better; and why I would NEVER vote for the Democratic Party !
For the current Democrat establishment/elites, Michael Bloomberg is just the kind of guy they want to force down the throats of the "Bernie Sanders" base, whom they tend to think of as credulous rubes. You see, Frankie Baby,the dirty reality is that the (traditional) Democrats are the party of plutocracy and the Deep State that merely PRETENDS it operates in the interests of the less fortunate amongst
oi polloi. They, the common plebs who are disadvantaged, exploited, marginalised, oppressed, members of ethnic/racial minorities, LGBTQI are nothing but cannon fodder whose votes are bought by buying off their leaders in in the racial grievance, education, public, housing and union sectors, and with the subsidies paid for by debt and the taxes of the middle and upper income earners who do not yet have enough wealth to buy expensive tax-sheltering paperwork and relevant exemptions in the tax code.
So you see, the Democratic Party is a "Janus - Faced" pox on the common people of America. They have always been simulteously the party of elites and the party of the dependent classes. The pretend to protect the later, but the truth is that they merely use them as "cannon fodder" to enrich the former. At the precise moment left - wing radicals sincerely aiming at taxing and regulating the wealthy off their lofty financial perches are DARING to speak openly of confiscating wealth, along comes a man who laughs in their faces and proves that many of their ostensible leaders will sell them out.
At some point, as the anger boils up, you can expect to hear cries claiming that Bloomberg is a Republican plant, deliberately sent to destroy the Democratic Party by his former golf-partner, Donald Trump, who is now the font of all evil.
Dachshund
