Donald
Trump’s economic advisers released a bizarre report attacking
socialism yesterday. Socialists can only take one lesson from it:
we’re winning.
by
Miles Kampf-Lassin
Part
1
If you
want proof that the growing popularity of socialism poses a real
threat to the Trump administration — and to the dominance of market
fundamentalism over the US economy — just look at a panicky report
released Tuesday by the White House Council of Economic Advisers
(CEA).
Titled
“The Opportunity Costs of Socialism,” the seventy-two-page
document is a capitalist retort to rising calls for redistributive
policies. Ostensibly (and bizarrely) released in recognition of “the
200th anniversary of Karl Marx’s birth,” the report
acknowledges that “self-declared socialists are gaining support
in Congress and among much of the electorate.”
Indeed,
by the time the 2018 midterm elections come to a close, there will
almost assuredly be three self-described socialists serving in the US
Congress — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Bernie
Sanders — along with dozens more in state and local offices
throughout the United States. But it’s not just the historic growth
in electoral power for socialists that has the current government
worried. It’s the widespread embrace of socialism and
social-democratic policies by the American public.
Medicare
for All, a policy cornerstone of the resurgent American socialist
movement, is supported by 70 percent of Americans, including a
majority of Republicans. Policies such as a $15 minimum wage, a
federal jobs guarantee, higher taxes for the wealthy and
corporations, free public college, and urgent action to tackle
climate change all similarly boast majority support. And more and
more candidates are running on these ideas, as current office holders
push for legislation that would make them US law.
Clearly
the Right is losing the war of ideas. Apparently they hope an
eye-glaze-inducing white paper will help pull the public back into
their camp.
Source,
links:
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/10/socialism-report-white-house-trump-medicare-for-all
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