What Kind of a Socialist is Barack Obama? No Kind
Stanley Kurtz has decided that Barack Obama is a socialist — a case he makes in his forthcoming book: Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism.
But what does socialism mean? Many Europeans call themselves socialist, but mean only that they support the mixed economies which every advanced country has, including the United States.
Sweden, often thought of as either a socialist utopia or nightmare, depending upon your perspective, actually has a robust private economy — indeed,
almost all production is in the hands of privately held companies, just like in the United States. Taxes are much higher than in our country — certainly on the wealthy — and are used to fund a far greater array of public goods and services. But that is only a difference of degree, not kind, from the policies of every developed country from Canada to Australia, and including all of Western Europe. Indeed, David Cameron, Angela Merkel, and even
Mitt Romney might be said to be socialist by this standard because they support government augmented programs to provide universal health insurance. And what about George W. Bush? After all,
it was Bush who signed into law the Medicare Part D bill, the largest extension of the welfare state in American history. And Medicare is, in fact, a single payer system for the elderly.
Meyerson’s politics, similar to Harrington’s but with a particular interest in the support of the labor movement, have nothing to do with the fantasy that Kurtz has imputed to him, and if you don’t believe me, you can review his voluminous writings for yourself. If you’re a conservative, what you will find is the kind of political and economic program you will oppose, but
nothing that remotely has anything to do with “the full nationalization of the economy.” Needless to say, Obama — somebody who has published a good deal for a politician and with his own pen — has never advocated such a program either. Or one can examine his time in the Illinois and U.S. Senate to investigate whether he ever proposed the nationalization of the American economy.
There’s a good essay to be written about the almost demented anxiety, verging on paranoia, that a mainstream American liberal named Barack Obama has evoked among American conservatives. Stanley Kurtz seems to be in a good position to write that essay — beginning perhaps with a long conversation with the face he sees in the mirror every morning.
http://www.frumforum.com/what-kind-of-a-socialist-is-barack-obama-no-kind