Will America actually elect a socialist president?

News, Politics

On October 13, 2015, in front of 15 million viewers during the first Democratic presidential debate, Anderson Cooper asked candidate Bernie Sanders, “How can any kind of a socialist win a general election in the United States?”

Considering that Americans have never elected a socialist president—or even come close—the question was certainly relevant. And yet the question being asked at all on a national stage signifies a definite and profound shift in mainstream politics.

There are other indictors. In the past eight months, the Bernie phenomenon has repeatedly drawn crowds in the tens of thousands in cities and towns throughout the country. Socialism, with an increase of 169%, is the most searched word on dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster’s site in 2015. And in the fall, many polls showed Sanders doing better than Hillary Clinton against potential GOP opponents in a general election.

Could Bernie Sanders be America’s first socialist president? And is Sanders even really a socialist?

What is socialism anyway?

Like many abstract terms that contain complex ideas—such as freedom,   democracy, or  justice—socialism means different things to different people.

While we’re long past the McCarthy witch-hunt days of the 1950s, “socialism” continues to be a dirty word among many, particularly conservatives. The term is often hurled in a derogatory way at just about any policy where government doesn’t shrink. Obamacare, for instance, is “pure socialism” for expanding the number of insured Americans through government subsidies to the private healthcare industry (but not because it creates a universal single-payer system and abolishes the private health insurance market—which, of course, it doesn’t).

Older generations and most conservatives in the United States tend to associate socialism with the one-party rule of state communism in the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba. But Bernie Sanders self-identifies as a “democratic socialist”; this worldview is more akin to what you find in the Scandinavian countries, which emphasize strong social welfare states and less inequality in income and wealth.

Still, there are a number of other versions of socialism, which are fundamentally incompatible with capitalism and aim to overthrow or replace it. Some of the more historically significant traditions include revolutionary Marxism, utopian socialism, and anarchism, all claiming the mantle of “true” socialism.

And sure enough, according to The Daily Beast, “It’s hard to find a socialist in America who seems to believe that Bernie Sanders is even socialist at all, apart from Bernie Sanders himself.” But does it really matter what a “socialist” thinks if the majority of people think he is?

Shifting opinions

Among young people, working-class folks, liberals, and people of color, socialism is becoming far more acceptable. Given the slippery definitions of socialism, it’s hard to know what that means, exactly. However, according to a 2011 Pew Research Center survey, “almost half of people ages 18 to 49 view socialism favorably while only 46% had a favorable view of capitalism,” a change most likely attributable to associating socialism with Scandinavian democracy rather than Stalinist totalitarianism.

While almost 90 percent of conservative Republicans view socialism negatively, 59 percent of liberal Democrats see it positively. Perhaps not surprisingly, “low-income Americans are twice as likely as higher-income Americans” to view socialism positively.

The shift must be understood in conjunction with current dissatisfaction with the status quo: in a recent survey, 77 percent of respondents (including 53 percent of Republicans) agreed that corporations and the rich are too powerful. With record-breaking levels of wealth and income inequality, massive student debt, and a stagnant labor market, is it really surprising that many are turning to a worldview which appears to promise a more egalitarian and just society?

Can Bernie win?

On the wall in Sanders’ office hangs a portrait of another socialist and former presidential candidate: Eugene V. Debs. While the best showing Debs could manage was only 6% of the vote in 1912 (which remains the highest percentage for any socialist presidential candidate in US history), Sanders hopes to surpass his hero by actually winning.

As the primary season heats up, he appears to be within striking distance—and even ahead in some polls—of Hillary Clinton in Iowa, and particularly New Hampshire, the first two states to choose delegates to the presidential nominating conventions. However, Bernie is still a considerable 20 to 30 percentage points behind Clinton nationally (depending on which poll you look at); at this point, a Sanders’ victory is still a long shot. But then again, in December 2007, Barack Obama trailed Clinton by 26 points.

Regardless of who wins the nomination, Sanders has already substantially altered political discourse and transformed public consciousness on a range of issues from income inequality to free higher education to paid sick leave. And if these are the positions on issues that resonate with millions of Americans, does it really matter what label we pin on him?