Socialist, communist, fascist, Marxist?
Assigning inapplicable labels to leading Democrats, however pathetic and confused, is now a favorite tactic of the American Right. And if their fears had the smallest bit of justification, I might even say we’re in the midst of another Red Scare.
Alas, we are not. But attacks on Barack Obama’s social democratic reforms do recall images from the McCarthy era. The witch-hunts at the Cold War’s outset, the primary political experience of my grandparents’ generation, are best understood as attempts to roll back the liberal New Deal order that was dominant for nearly two decades.
The McCarthyists’ antipathy towards public services was especially evident in Southern California. There, the Taft Ellander Wagner Act, under which ten thousand public housing units would be built, was decried by the Small Property Owners’ League as a “Gestapo housing authority,” and a “major step towards Communism.” Somehow, benign legislation was linked to both Nazis and Soviets, sworn ideological enemies just a few years earlier. That kind of contradictory stupidity would make even Glenn Beck proud.
Nonetheless, the boogeyman used to put the possibility of more government services to sleep in 1953 was usually the Soviet Union. However, with communism no longer a major force, today’s Cold Warriors point to Western Europe to derail healthcare reform.
To me, it’s laughable, considering that a member of my family lived in West Germany until her twenties. At a time when American conservatives were fighting “socialism” in their country, war-torn Europe was itself turning in a social democratic direction under the U.S. Marshall Plan. The Right saw social democratic policies in the United States as a step towards communism. It was, of course, perfectly fine to create public health care options and rebuild infrastructure in allied states.
Moreover, by funding the reconstruction of its cities and long-term health of its people, America sought to stanch the growing popularity of Europe’s communists. Only by helping governments appease their war-weary populations with necessary services like guaranteed health coverage, education and transportation could we secure a democratic Europe. Real radical socialist parties – communist parties – were kept at bay.
But once again, it doesn’t matter. Eight years after Bush’s first set of tax cuts, those who believe the economic system should benefit more than one percent of all Americans are still tax-and-spend liberals. Fourty-four years after Medicare’s passage, those championing a healthcare system that is on par with other First World nations are still socialists. And 50 years after the Red Scare ended, conservative lawmakers still find time to list all those “socialists” they know.
The U.S. helped create necessary social services to aid Europeans, like my German relative, through hard times. Our nation spent billions in federal money to truly win hearts and minds. We initiated “socialism” so as to prevent communism. That wasn’t an ironic policy. It was discarding a purist economic solution in favor of a hybrid economic solution. It was the result of a realization that sometimes, governments must help their people when existing ideologies and policies fail.
And yet, in between worrying about communist infiltration and a socialist transformation, we forgot about ourselves.
