A common refrain in right-wing circles and among centrist Democrats is that Americans fear socialism, so that the message and policy proposals of Democratic Socialists like Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) are dead on arrival everywhere except for urban enclaves populated by young hipsters.
President Donald Trump has weaponized the idea that socialist policies turn off voters, blasting Democrats for allegedly going too far left.
"We believe in the American Dream, not in the socialist nightmare," Trump told attendees of the Conservative Political Action Committee.
But socialist ideas have been tried in America before -- and not in some hipster commune in Brooklyn.
Writing in The Nation, the progressive journalist John Nichols describes how his hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, embraced socialist figures and policies throughout the 20th century.
"If I owned all the real estate in the world, I wouldn’t feel so powerful as I do on the streets of this socialist city,” declared former New York City councilman Baruch Vladeck when he arrived in Milwaukee in 1932 for the Socialist Party’s national convention in that city.
That year, the socialist ticket did well, Nichols notes, prompting the winner, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, to meet with civil rights campaigner Norman Thomas. Thomas had been the Socialist Party's chosen candidate.
"Roosevelt’s New Deal took the wind out of the Socialist Party’s sails in the national arena, but the party remained a force in Milwaukee for decades to come," Nichols writes.
Milwaukee would go on to elect three socialist Mayors, a historical fact referenced in the movie Wayne's World.
“I think one of the most interesting aspects of Milwaukee is the fact that it’s the only major American city to have ever elected three Socialist mayors,” rocker Alice Cooper observes in the film.
Nichols argues that instead of running from the word socialist, Democrats -- who are holding their 2020 convention in Milwaukee -- should use it.
"Instead of fearing mention of the S-word, Democrats can and should approach it as smart Republicans have the L-word—“libertarian.” Republicans frequently borrow from the libertarian lexicon and toolbox, and acknowledge as much, without abandoning their essential partisanship," Nichols argues.
And the demographics are changing.
"Polling tells us that young voters are more comfortable with socialism than capitalism," Nichols notes.
"Older voters may still be susceptible to Republican appeals rooted in Cold War hysteria, but the challenges posed by the existential crisis of climate change and the radical transformation of our economy in an age of AI-driven automation are going to make everyone far more open to radical responses."
And Democrats can pull from Milwaukee's history as a blueprint to best combat Trump in 2020 and Republicans beyond that. "That worked well for Milwaukee in the 20th century—so much so that “socialism” ceased to be a scare word for the city’s residents. What frightens Republicans today is that “socialism” is ceasing to be a scare word in our contemporary national discourse," Nichols concludes.
