The race for the 2020 presidency is well underway. As Yogi Berra sagely observed, “It’s hard to predict stuff, especially when it’s in the future.” Nevertheless, some things can be predicted with confidence. Donald Trump will be the Republican candidate for president. There is only a slim chance that Democrats will bring impeachment proceedings against Trump.
Even if House Democrats would initiate impeachment proceedings, at this point there is 0 chance that Senate Republicans would vote to convict. Nearly half — 42 percent plus or minus 4 — of the nation’s citizens approves of Trump’s performance. A substantial number of this portion, believing Trump to be the greatest thing since sliced bread, will back him no matter what. The rest of this portion, though not necessarily enthralled with the man himself, approve of his policies and endorse his performance, and will back Trump against any Democrat. With Trump’s solid Republican support, Senate Republicans, their own careers at risk, will not vote to convict.
Also not hard to predict — because Republicans have already informed us — is a central theme of the 2020 race. Trump and his Republicans will cast this race as a battle against “socialism.”
Vestiges of the Red Scare of a half century ago still exist. The word “socialist” remains toxic to a majority of American voters. Republicans are already casting Democrats as striving to turn the U.S. into a “socialist nation.” When Bernie Sanders and other Democrats refer to themselves as “democratic socialists,” Republicans seize upon this as “proof” of such intent, notwithstanding the fact that “democratic socialism” as advocated by Sanders and others has absolutely no resemblance to the old Soviet style communism.
In political debate, facts take a back seat. The stage is already set for the media to join Republicans in casting the race as “capitalism vs. socialism.” The mainstream media is complicit in dumbing down the legitimate debate of the role of government in the American economy.
Just as we would not want pure capitalism — no economic role for government whatsoever — neither do we want pure socialism resembling the failed Soviet style communism.
The major economies of the world are what economists call “mixed systems,” that is, a mixture of private enterprise and government in managing the economy. The mix of private enterprise and government obviously varies — from American style capitalism, to a greater role for government in western European and Scandinavian nations, to a dominant role for government in communist China. But even communist China, with its billionaires arising out of the private sector, is a far cry from pure socialism.
In short, the debate is about the role of government in the economy. Democrats, to a varying degree depending on the candidate, see a greater role for government in assuring access to health care, and addressing income inequality and affordable education. Trump and his Republicans campaigned on, and have moved the nation toward, a reduced role for government. This includes deregulating industries and pushing for increasing privatization of health care, education and public lands.
These issues deserve the spotlight of legitimate political debate. Unfortunately, this stands to be buried under the false choice of “capitalism vs. socialism.” None of the self-declared, or painted by the media, more “leftist” Democrats advocates the type of “socialism” that Trump is using as a scare tactic in his campaign. And few, if any, of the most conservative beneficiaries of Social Security and Medicare advocate privatizing these programs that were until recently branded by major Republicans as “socialism.”
Before he ran for public office, Republican icon Ronald Reagan, was employed by the American Medical Association to lobby against Medicare, warning that such a government-run program would lead to socialism in America. He insisted that this would lead us to spending “our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free.”
As outlandish as this sounds, it is swept under the rug that prominent Republicans Barry Goldwater, Newt Gingrich, Robert Dole, John McCain and Mike Pence — and as this is written, President Trump — have opposed Medicare and/or proposed funding cuts for the program.
The debate over the role of government in assuring access to medical care dominated the Obama presidency and was obfuscated by Republicans to an astounding degree. Republicans from districts in which their low-income constituents eventually benefitted from the Affordable Care Act not only opposed the program and yet managed to get re-elected, but used the program to soundly whip Democrats over three election cycles.
Instead of clarifying the debate, the mainstream media played a major role in obfuscation by amplifying the controversy and neglecting to cover the beneficiaries of the act. That is, until the threat to revoke the act became serious in 2017.
We can already see the mainstream media cooperating with Republicans in casting this race as “capitalism vs. socialism.” To deal with the usual media practice of dumbing down debate to about the third-grade level, Democrats will have to be at least articulate enough to coax the Tin Man out of the rain.
When MSNBC’s Morning Joe asked candidate John Hickenlooper, “Are you a capitalist?” he bumbled it terribly. He could have said, “Of course, I’m a businessman. And I see a role for government in this economy. Let’s talk about that.”
The American economy is dominated by the private sector, a market-based economy that is very productive. But the hardest edges of capitalism must be tempered to ensure that capitalism works for everybody. This requires a role for government.
Let the debate proceed without the false choice of “capitalism vs. socialism.”
— John Waelti of Monroe, a retired professor of economics, can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net. His column appears Saturdays in the Monroe Times.
