The Slur of Socialism

I’m not sure why everything that might make people’s lives easier and less stressful, is brushed aside by many Republicans with the stinging slur of socialism, an echo of red-baiting years past where anyone who stood up to the status quo was deemed a Communist. 

It’s was a slur employed by our past president, Donald Trump, who studied Richard Nixon, whom his good friend Roger Stone, convicted of witness tampering and five counts of making false statements in connection with the Robert Mueller investigation, has tattooed on his back. Both Trump and Stone are known admirer of Senator Joseph McCarthy who held his kangaroo court (apologies to kangaroos) in the 1950’s, (are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party)? The hearings ruined people’s lives, and similar to today, polarized the nation. 

Men like Walt Disney and Ronald Reagan testified against their colleagues. Others like the Hollywood Ten, including Ring Lardner and Dalton Trumbo, refused. Albert Einstein, asserted that the question was in violation of First Amendment rights. McCarthy went after people in Hollywood, the University of California, the Department of State and charged that the U.S. Army was soft on communism, which ultimately led to his censure by the Senate. 

Now it seems that anything that directs money toward addressing our country’s social infrastructure as described by President Joe Biden in his recent stimulus package, is subject to another kind of loyalty oath, quickly dismissed with a hash tag of #socialist and meriting no further consideration.

There’s also the guilt-by-association scenario. Is legislation supported by that flaming socialist Bernie Sanders? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? If yes, no need to look further–even if the United States is one of the few advanced countries in the world (how can it be advanced–oxymoron territory), which has no universal health care, paid leave for parents, and free higher education. It would rather put students in debt to the tune of thousands of dollars, and force them to choose between paying a student loan bill or child care. And why do young parents have to pay a major portion of every paycheck to child child? According to Freddiemac, the federal housing agency, in many states, childcare costs more than housing.

The language has changed but it’s still old-fashioned red-baiting, a fear that spending money to help U.S. citizens may transform society in ways that are antithetical to making money. Don’t listen to the big lie. Write your legislators.