Mainstream Democratic Socialism

Readers of this blog probably realized long ago that I rarely refer to today's Democrats as "liberals." That's simply because they're not. The Democratic-left today has approached "radical" terroritory, if we refer to the traditional left-right ideological continuum, where those farthest to the left of the spectrum genuinely advocate radical, revolutionary change.

I'm routinely ridiculed by leftists who think this is all funny "wingnutterry": There's no such thing as "socialists" or "postmodern nihilists," is the usual refrain. I pretty much ignore these denials, since I teach political ideologies and these terms are not controversial in the academic literature. But just as "liberal" became a term of harsh derision during the 1970s and 1980s, conservatives have begun using "socialist" as a mainstream attack on Democratic partisans pushing for big government spendathons, anything-goes free-love values in the social sphere, and terrorist appeasement in foreign policy.

In any case, the New York Times has a piece today discussing the changes in poltical labels, " ‘Socialism!’ Boo, Hiss, Repeat":

It seems that “socialist” has supplanted “liberal” as the go-to slur among much of a conservative world confronting a one-two-three punch of bank bailouts, budget blowouts and stimulus bills. Right-leaning bloggers and talk radio hosts are wearing out the brickbat. Senate and House Republicans have been tripping over their podiums to invoke it. The S-bomb has become as surefire a red-meat line at conservative gatherings as “Clinton” was in the 1990s and “Pelosi” is today.

Jonathan Singer, at MyDD, interprets the shifting attack nomenclature as signaling the rehabilitation of liberalism:

I don't think we're necessarily going to see a massive shift in the ideological identification of the electorate just yet, as the reluctance of many Democrats to call themselves Liberals is still palpable. That said, this does have the feel of the beginning of a new era, one in which Democrats aren't afraid to admit that they are Democrats, or that they are liberal - and, more importantly, that the party doesn't reflexively allow the Republicans to set the ground rules for the important political battles.

Not so fast.

Remember the little debate we had a few months back over the notion of a "center-right nation"? Leftist cringed at the idea that American political culture is individualist, egalitarian, and Tocquevillian. But those who push for a "neo-progressive" program of "universal" healthcare, tax "fairness," and smart "regulation" are today's statist mandarins who have mainstreamed Marx's theories of class struggle into a hip postmodern ideology of anti-American multiculturalism and social-leveling big government. Such ideologues excoriate regular folks, everyday Americans, as "black helicopter" conspiracists and hyper-patriotic "one-worlder" freaks.

The fact is that today's Democratic-left are indeed socialists of varying degrees of radicalism. Some would simply prefer the U.S. adopt the European social welfare-model of statist dirigisme. Some, of course, can't speed up the anti-imperialist revolution fast enough. The problem is that "moderate" Democrats don't marginalize their truly revolutionary cadres.

Indeed, President Barack Obama has asked a coalition of hardline leftist organizations to mobilize for his political agenda. Moreover, if the American univsersity is the repository of society's values and the locus of investment in the nation's survival in liberty and freedom, the outing of the "mainstreaming" of socialist ideological nihilism and anti-Americanism can't come soon enough.