“Socialist”: Smear Word or Competing Ideology?

Ever since last year’s election, Obama and his administration/campaign have taken to calling out Republican critics calling the President and his policies “socialist,” pointing to these “attack ads” as merely another empty insult by nay-saying, change-fearing, fear-mongering conservative smear tacticians.

But why does the use of the word “socialist” constitute an angry attack in the first place? Why should we view the word “socialist” as an insult? Socialism is not a concrete theory or type of government, there’s no immovable definition for what is socialism and what is not; it’s just a leftist trend in political thought. Michael Moore freely admits to being a socialist, and thinks socialism is better than capitalism. Most Europeans are proud to be socialist. Socialism is merely a difference in opinion with free-market capitalism, just like Islam is a difference in opinion with Christianity. Neither the word “Muslim” nor the word “Socialist” should be taken as an insult, they are merely a difference in opinion from a certain set of beliefs.

No informed democrat will deny that the Keynesian welfare-state Obama and most liberals idealize leans towards somewhat socialist ideas. It is an undeniable fact that Obama is very liberal by American standards, and an undeniable fact that socialism is a progression of liberal thought. Why, then, is it so controversial to call Obama a socialist, when he identifies his economic ideas with principles rooted in socialist ideology?

In reality, calling somebody a “socialist” is no more insulting than calling them a “libertarian”. They are merely two opposite economic principles, the far right and the far left of the economic spectrum. The problem for Obama is that here in the US, most voters remember back from the cold war days that “capitalism is good”, and “socialism is bad,” ideals ingrained by tons of US propaganda. Obama is a smart guy; he knows his economic principles are rooted in socialism. But he’s also smart enough to realize that admitting so would be bad for his political career. So the Democratic Party is taking on a safer argument; rather than trying to argue that socialism is better than conservative political ideals, they are arguing that they are not socialists, and blasting the use of such words as an unfounded attack ad. By cloaking the true identity of their plans and their beliefs, Democrats can offer the American populace anything they like under a different phrasing, without risking detection as socialist wealth redistributors. It is always safer to appear moderate than a radical, and so even if Obama and friends are proposing socialist ideas, they cannot safely call those ideas by their true name.

      Apparently, neither can their opponents.