Socialism in the United States

HAVANA – If we take everything the American press says seriously, some would have you believe that Bernie Sanders invented socialism in the United States. The truth is the Vermont senator could be considered one of the last to hop on a train that has been traveling the country since the beginning of the 19th century when a group of utopian communists tried to create idyllic communities in a world ruled by violence and greed.

A little later, as a result of the failure of the 1848 revolution in Europe, some immigrants participating in these struggles, which included colleagues and followers of Karl Marx, founded the League of American Workers, the first American Marxist organization. Many others followed covering all imaginable trends. Anarchists, communists, social democrats, Trotskyists, Maoists and Guevaristas, among others, shaped a very heterogeneous movement, lacking unity and doctrinal coherence, whose generic roots would have to be found in the struggles for the demands of workers, the rights of the discriminated against, as well as in their egalitarian proposals and the confrontation with big capital.

Despite the fact that history records the tireless activism of its militants and not a few sacrificed their lives in the effort, these organizations have had little success in altering the American political balance, to the point that many people do not recognize the existence of a left in U.S. Making matters worse, there has been so much adulterations, that from its own bosom we’ve seen the creation of opponents, Trotskyites invented the doctrinal theses of the neo-conservative movement, and the right-wing anarchists ended up being the libertarians who inspired the Tea Party.

It is therefore to be expected that things have turned out this way. The American left has had to face a hegemonic system backed by a powerful economy and a widespread ideology which idolizes individualism. Repression has also played an extraordinary and effective role which has managed to equate socialism with treason, as occurred in the McCarthy era and throughout the Cold War.

At the beginning of the 20th century, with the disappearance of the Populist Party, the possibility of a third party representing popular interests died. In this way, alternatives to capitalism were eliminated from the systemic processes through which the country is governed, including systematic and equitable access to the mainstream media.

However, the left has always been part of the most relevant processes of American history. For example, we have the civil rights movement of the 1960s, the war against poverty, the armed rebellion by groups like the Black Panther Party, and the anti-Vietnam-war movement. They were the 1960s, when the so-called ‘New Left’ inspired the transformation of American society.

The left has continued to be alive and at times act massively in defense of the environment, against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in the Occupy Wall Street movement, criticism of neoliberalism and their stand against inequality. They’ve also been for gun control, respect for women’s rights, against abuse by the police, and the mistreatment of immigrants.

There are many who support Bernie Sanders. Perhaps that’s what convinced Sen. Sanders to declare himself a socialist, a socialist democrat, in 2013. It was at first considered political suicide, but 13 million voted for Sanders during the 2016 primaries, who came close to winning the party’s nomination against Hillary Clinton. 

In fact, there was research supporting this. In 2015, a Gallup poll showed that 47 percent of Americans were willing to vote for a socialist, including 59 percent of Democrats. A figure that hardly changed in 2018, which pointed to 57 percent of Democrats accepting the candidacy of a socialist for president of the country. A year later, Harris Poll indicated that 55 percent of women between the ages of 18 and 54 viewed socialism positively and a YouGov poll showed that 70 percent of young people thought the same way.

The problem then is not the fear that socialism disables Sanders’ candidacy. It is rather that the rejection of the system by his followers tends to limit his participation in the electoral process. Sanders himself has stated that it is frustrating to see his support not translated into votes. Joe Biden might experience this same rejection if he wins the nomination. The only thing that might modify this equation is the extraordinary rejection that Donald Trump provokes among Democratic Party voters.

The perception that Biden has the greatest chance to beat Trump has had a decisive influence on the primaries. It does not matter that Biden does not do well in debates or that Trump, as he once boasted, murders someone on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, the election will be decided before votes are tallied in the polls: what matters is the math.

Faced with a 25 percent of hardcore Republican voters, Democrats must generate turnout levels that exceed 55 percent of their registered voters to win. This was the case with Obama in 2008, when the level of participation (62.3 percent) was the highest in 40 years. Its reverse was the 2016 elections, when Trump won, thanks to the fact that only 55.7 percent of overall voters participated.

Democrats are a majority of the voting public. It all depends on whether or not they vote. A good sign is the fact that 49.3 percent of the electorate participated during the midterms of 2018, which surpassed all previous midterm elections since 1914. The results, when they regained the House of Representatives, contrasts with the debacle of 2014 when they lost everything, where only 36.4 percent of the electorate participated, a 72-year low.  

Therefore everything indicates that a Democratic Party victory depends on greater popular participation making a victory in 2020 almost impossible if they are unable to mobilize the elusive Bernie Sanders electorate. If Sanders is not the candidate, as everything seems to indicate, then Biden will have to wear pink, because for those who think that the left does not play a role in the U.S. … it could be the socialists who decide the winner of the next presidential election the United States.