Socialism and the Republicans

Republicans call Barack Obama a socialist. If they continue doing so, they may inadvertently convert regular Americans to socialism.

The abuse spills forth every day from car radios and is emblazoned across television screens everywhere in America: Barack Obama is a socialist, maybe even a communist. Why? Because he — in contrast to the opinion-makers at Fox News and on talk radio — doesn’t automatically assume that the market is capable of exclusively solving every problem and that it therefore follows that government has a legitimate role to play in the lives of U.S. citizens.

These mindless attacks have meanwhile become so ingrained in public discourse that every one of the would-be Republican presidential candidates has adopted some variation of it. Herman Cain and Rick Perry play this game with special devotion, but even the supposedly moderate Mitt Romney isn’t above joining in.

So it’s not really surprising that, according to an actual opinion poll, 71 percent of those who identify themselves as probable voters in the Republican primaries think Obama is a socialist, while only 17 percent think he isn’t.

But according to the same poll, 78 percent of these voters think Medicare, the government-run health care program, should be kept as is. Exactly 10 percent would do away with Medicare altogether. A slightly smaller but still significant majority of Republicans consider other programs like Medicaid and Social Security to be a legitimate function of government.

Are Republicans closet socialists?

What’s going on here? Did the Occupy Wall Street movement succeed in convincing arch-conservative Republicans within two weeks that they’re part of the 99 percent? Or are Republicans secretly celebrating the fact that Obama is a socialist?

Of course, that’s not really the case. In France, and to a certain extent in Germany as well, “socialist” in the vernacular means “Social Democrat.” In the United States on the other hand, socialism reminds a majority of Republicans — as well as a significant number of Democrats — more of Stalin than Roosevelt. If it’s so tempting to use the term “socialist” as an insult, it’s simply because it is perceived as an insult in the first place.

Republicans, then, don’t think of themselves as socialists. But at the same time, even hard-core Republicans recognize that government has a legitimate role to play in a market economy. Despite all the radical rhetoric from their party’s leadership that they buy into, they’re not really prepared to completely give themselves over to the mercies of the market powers.

In short, those same voters who think Obama is a socialist agree with many of his opinions to a remarkably great degree.

A Rhetorical Score Against Themselves

For the short term, it’s clear why Republicans demonize Obama. When they denigrate him as a socialist, they distance themselves in plain language from an unpopular president and mobilize their electorate.

For the long term, however, the Republican candidates risk scoring a monumental goal against themselves. The more radical their anti-government rhetoric, the less they will be able (if elected) to come up with practical solutions for the real miseries the voters are suffering. Driven by their own words to a fundamental rejection of a welfare state, they will suffer quick rejection because while their base hates big government as an abstract, they nevertheless expect to keep getting the benefits to which they have become accustomed.

Going to the extreme, one could even imagine that the daily demonizing of Obama as a socialist might eventually make socialism socially acceptable in some circles. In the event that Republicans are successful in convincing the American people that Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security constitute socialism, then a lot of Americans might well admit to being socialists rather than doing away with these extremely popular programs.

Oskar Lafontaine isn’t a communist, and Peter Gauweiler isn’t a fascist.

Let that be a lesson for all of us. It’s always tempting to bad-mouth a political opponent just for the sheer joy of the rhetoric. Even in Germany, an Oskar Lafontaine can quickly be typecast as a communist or a Peter Gauweiler as a fascist.

Normally, we consider such labels as problematic because they trivialize historical injustices. There’s much to be said for this concern. Whoever doesn’t recognize that the victims of communism and fascism suffered far worse than anything Lafontaine or Gauweiler could do has learned nothing — absolutely nothing — from history.

But perhaps the long-term, unintended consequences are even more dangerous. If broad segments of the population believe that Lafontaine is a communist, then those who like him may someday come to the conclusion that communism really can’t be so bad. Blind tirades and insults are problematic not only because they’re senseless and unfair, but also because they’re often counterproductive.