Socialism
The Democrat Party Is Not Socialism — And Why That Still Matters
I keep running into people who think the Democrat party is socialism. Yesterday a person told me she liked socialism and voted for the Democrat party and supported Kamala Harris. And I just stood there, because the two things aren’t the same.
I can’t support Harris. I agree with some things, I do. But you can’t tell me that the Democrat party, after all these years, can’t produce another candidate that is effective like Obama. Obama had it. He could talk to farmers and college kids and veterans and single moms and make them all feel like they were in the same America. He passed programs that actually helped people without blowing up the whole system. He governed. That’s the “it factor.” That’s what wins Ohio and Oregon and Arkansas.
The Democrat party needs people that are not for socialism. Not because I hate people who call themselves socialists — but because the party itself was never built on that. The Democrat party is not socialism. It’s regulated capitalism with a safety net. It’s Social Security, Medicare, Pell Grants, the ACA. Those are social programs inside a market system. That’s not the government owning Apple and Exxon. Words mean things. I wish people would understand politics before voting.
That’s the other piece. The problem with this country is we have a high percentage of people that don’t vote. People that just live without voting. They’re tired, they’re working swing shift, they think it doesn’t matter, or they think both sides are the same. Some of them think “I like socialism” so they check Democrat, not realizing the party isn’t running on taking over industries. Some think “I hate socialism” so they stay home, not realizing they’re opting out of their own future.
How can we appeal to those people that are not voting?
You don’t do it with slogans. You don’t do it by yelling “socialist” or “fascist” across the internet. You do it by talking like Obama did — plain, direct, for all people. You appeal to them by showing up where they are. At the coffee shop before swing shift. At the community college where people are trying to finish a degree they started in the 90s. At the nonprofit helping women get housing after being unhoused and criminalized. You show them what government did for them when it worked: the student loan that let them go back to school, the health clinic that didn’t turn them away, the road that got paved.
Non-voters aren’t stupid. They’re disillusioned. They’ve seen politicians who feel radical but not effective. They’ve seen promises without the it factor to actually pass a bill. If the Democrat party wants them, it has to run people who look and sound like their lives. People who can say, “This isn’t socialism. This is a country where you work, and when you fall, we don’t let you hit concrete.”
That’s what Obama understood. That’s what’s missing.
Until the party finds that again — people who are for all Americans, not just the loudest wing of the base — a lot of folks are going to keep sitting out. And we can’t afford that. Not in Salem, not in Rogers, not anywhere.
Voting is the floor, not the ceiling. But you can’t get to the ceiling if people never walk in the door.
