Democrats and Democratic Socialists
Two Peas in a Pod
What’s the difference between a Democrat and a democratic socialist? MSNBC’s Chris Matthews posed that question to Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz in 2015 when she was head of the Democratic National Committee.
Schultz was flustered at first and then tried to change the subject by saying that the difference between Democrats and Republicans was much more important. But Matthews pressed her. “I used to think there was a big difference,” he said. “What do you think it is? A Democrat like Hillary [Clinton] and a [democratic] socialist like Bernie Sanders.”
Matthews never got his answer and over 10 years later, the country is waiting for one.
The term “Democratic socialist” in U.S. politics typically refers to alignment with the Democratic Socialists of America platform: Medicare for All, expanded labor rights, expanded social programs, etc. Democratic socialists support government programs that implement these objectives directly, treating private enterprise as a necessary evil to be strictly regulated and whose primary purpose is to provide tax revenues for the government.
Mainstream Democrats support each of these same ideas, differing primarily in the extent they want to use government to implement them directly with new programs and bureaucracies versus incentivizing the private sector with regulations, tax breaks and government grants.
Democratic presidential candidates starting with Barack Obama and more recently Joe Biden recognized that a majority of voters were not ready to accept democratic socialist policies and ran as mainstream Democrats. Both claimed they would “reach across the aisle” to work with Republicans in Congress to implement policies that would benefit all Americans. Instead, once elected, both adopted policies that showed their true colors as progressive Democrats, supporting legislation such as Obamacare that was passed with no Republican votes.
Other Democratic candidates around the country also continue to run for office as centrists only showing their progressive colors after being elected. Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger warned fellow Democrats, “We need to not ever use the words ‘socialist’ or ‘socialism’ ever again.” Following taking office this year, her popularity tanked after having Virginia rejoin the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, raising energy costs after she campaigned on affordability issues, an all-too-frequent occurrence for Democratic politicians.
Newly elected New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani actually ran as a democratic socialist and made no excuses. For him, governing as a democratic socialist means prioritizing group interests over individual interests. Property rights are conditional and private enterprise is useful only insofar as it serves the public interest as determined by politicians and bureaucrats. He and his fellow political elites believe government’s proper role is to redistribute wealth.
Mamdani told the city’s voters, “To those who insist that the era of big government is over, hear me when I say this—no longer will City Hall hesitate to use its power to improve New Yorkers’ lives. For too long, we have turned to the private sector for greatness.” This is the mindset that resulted in the mayor’s campaign promises to freeze rents, create city-run grocery stores, deliver universal childcare, and make public transportation “fast and free.”
Despite socialism’s track record of worldwide failure and human suffering that dates back more than a century, socialist central planners still have unshaken confidence in their ability to allocate resources and make good decisions for the rest of us. Mamdani said “We will return the vast resources of this city to the workers.” This moment “demands a new politics and a new approach to power.”
Socialism’s siren call, repeated by Democrats, progressives and social democrats, that government can solve all your problems, continues to lure voters especially during times of economic distress. Voters learn the hard way that stifling personal initiative and eliminating personal responsibility leads not to utopia but to serfdom.