If The Socialism Fits…

So many on the Right [the vast majority of my Friends In The Ether excluded] are so wary of calling Comrade Obamnin exactly what he is: a committed radical socialist.

Those who are so hesitant often dismiss those of us that apply that label as being ‘melodramatic’ or ‘over-the-top’, or engaging in ‘wild’ exaggeration.

Why such the fear of labeling a spade a spade [nothing racial intended]?

As Stanley Kurtz, author of the soon-to-be-released book Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama And The Untold Story Of American Socialism, explains:

Have a look at today’s piece on umemployment by regular Washington Post columnist, Harold Meyerson. Meyerson is a prominent public figure, and a Vice-Chair of the Democratic Socialists of America. Can you spot the socialism in his column? Meyerson criticizes big business, attacks across-the-board tax cuts, and advocates government-directed infrastructure investment as a solution to unemployment. Meyerson also supports initiatives along these lines by the Obama administration and congressional Democrats.

Now some might say, what’s so socialist about all that? Meyerson hasn’t advocated a total government takeover of the economy. He’s even spoken out in favor of initiatives by conventional Democrats.

Yet we could just as easily look at things in reverse. Meyerson’s support for these Democratic initiatives could be taken as a sign that some socialists agree with conservatives. That is, sophisticated socialists and conservatives alike believe that America can be pushed into socialism by degrees. In fact, this is exactly how Meyerson’s group, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), understands its task. Actual existing American socialists (of the sophisticated “non-sectarian” variety typified by the DSA) don’t go around demanding full nationalization of the economy at a blow. On the contrary, they offer support to those Democratic Party initiatives most likely to bring about a socialist transformation in the long term. That is, the DSA thinks of itself as working within the Democratic Party, as a force to steer the party onto an incrementally socialist path.

As I’ll show in my forthcoming book, Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism, this vision of socialism has long shaped President Obama. (I announced the book yesterday. You can see the cover and a description of the book’s argument here.) The point is that the notion that Barack Obama is a socialist is too often dismissed as a lurid and impossibly extreme scenario, as if being a socialist had to mean throwing Molotov cocktails and demanding instant revolution. On the contrary, Harold Meyerson’s regular columns in The Washington Post show us that, even if their long-term goals are radical, it’s entirely possible for sophisticated socialists to participate in the everyday back-and-forth of American politics. This is the way to think about Obama.

Exactly.  A good way to label this is as ‘Stealth Socialism’, for much the same reasons we call a certain Muslim practice ‘Stealth Jihad’.

For too long people in this country have refused to see what is right before their eyes: Stealth Socialism has been invading the body politic and body cultural in America for well over a century, spreading its vile cancer as it marches through all of our institutions and our brains. 

I’m currently reading David Pietruska’s well-written book 1920: The Year Of The Six Presidents.  This year was the last hurrah for the Progressives before the return to Normalcy of the Harding and Coolidge years [these forces would be thrown out of power until halfway through Herbert Hoover’s term].  Progressivism was all the rage among Democrats and Republicans.  Wilson was the epitamy of the arrogant Leftist; Hoover was the cool, detached version.  Unlike today, Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge had to run slightly to the left of where they actually stood.  One fact that stands out is that all of the candidates for both Party’s nominations had to seem to possess some Progressive credibility. 

So, having Socialists of the Meyerson variety around as pundits, bureaucrats, and elected officials is nothing new.  The key in this case is that we’ve never had (1) such a committed and radical man in The White House who will not compromise and (2) such a committed follower of the Cloward-Piven / Alinksy style of rabid and destructive Leftism as President.

Every bit of evidence that people like the diligent Stanley Kurtz have been able to unearth shows that Barack Hussein Obama is a near-perfect poster boy for The Socialist Man.

A = A.

SIDENOTE: Please also take the time to click here and read this short and interesting comment by Mr. Kurtz.