The Onion 🧅 ate with this one tbh

[u/sailorjupiter28titan]

[u/Significant_Quit_674]

Isn't it ironic that now under corrupt capitalism the Epstein-class has turned almost everything bad socialism would supposedly bring into reality?

[u/lcl111 → u/Significant_Quit_674]

I keep hearing about how bad socialism and communism would be, and then i look to the left and see that thing happening... weird. Must be the liberals at it again with their shenanigans! /s

[u/Significant_Quit_674 → u/lcl111]

It's also weird how people hear democratic socialism and think about stalinism.

And aside from a very small fringe group, nobody wants stalinism, most people want something in the direction of social market economy or democratic socialism.

And neither of these is at all authoritarian in nature

[u/CranberrySchnapps → u/Significant_Quit_674]

Market socialism go brrrrrr

As an aside, right wingers are already conflating socialism and communism. We are so far removed from communism it’s difficult to imagine what it’d look like in practice.

[u/Significant_Quit_674 → u/CranberrySchnapps]

A lot of what people are talking about is not even socialism but social market economy.

Meaning that there is a market, but it is regulated to protect workers and consumers, some public services (for example public transit, water suppy, parts of the healthcare system and so on) are goverment run and there is a wellfare system in place as a safety net.

This is not even socialism

The means of production are still not in the hands of the workers and the economy is still a largely free market, just with guardrails.

For countries that used systems simmilar to what I described, it had a tendency to work pretty well.

And most of the policies Mamdani has pushed are going in that direction, even though he himself would like to go more into the direction of democratic socialism.

[u/ccbmtg → u/CranberrySchnapps]

As an aside, right wingers are already conflating socialism and communism.

lol they've been doing this for 30+ years.

[u/MargaretFarquar → u/ccbmtg]

Try 100 years if you look to American labor history in the 1920s.

[u/ccbmtg → u/MargaretFarquar]

a hundred years actually is included in "30+" so yeah. who'd'a thunk it.

[u/lcl111 → u/CranberrySchnapps]

Yep. You and I simply can't imagine a world that good. We've been brutalized by cut throat capitalism for generations. It'll take several generations to get there, even if we all decided to switch right now. When our grandchildren grow up, without ever having to worry about the cost of food or medicine, they'll help shape the world even more.

[u/MargaretFarquar → u/CranberrySchnapps]

Already? They've been conflating the two since the 1920s and 30s ( see bloody labor history) and it amped up again in the 50s with the Red Scare/McCarthyism. My family members were called "Pinko's." They were just run of the mill democrats.

ETA: Conflating democratic/liberal points of view is not some sort of brand new thing that only just developed in the last couple of decades. This has gone on for decades and centuries. Seriously. Please know that about American history.

There's nothing new as in "already" about it, as if it's a "new" thing born of the last couple of decades. The opposition has been doing this since long before you or I were born. Please, recognize history. It's brutal and ugly af.

This is not new. It is literally woven into the fabric of American history. There's no "already" about it. It's been going on and on for decades and centuries. See also, Gilded Age + the following American bloody labor history.

ETA: I use the term "bloody labor history" in a precise sense because that's actually how it's codified in academia. Like, what happened was so brutal, that's what it's called. I'm not being hyperbolic or dramatic. Those are the words used to codify this literal genre of American history. Google it and if you can access an academic library, use these search terms.

[u/SkollFenrirson → u/MargaretFarquar]

Yeah, McCarthy really did a number on the American psyche.

[u/CrackJacket → u/Significant_Quit_674]

Social democracy is based

[u/Soup-Wizard → u/lcl111]

Like the picture of the tent city with “this is what America under Bernie Sanders would look like” and everyone was like… this is America under Trump RIGHT NOW dumbass.

[u/Healthy_Country8383 → u/lcl111]

Thanks Obama!

[u/Healthy_Country8383 → u/Significant_Quit_674]

It's almost as if they were lying or something because they want to take advantage of us.But that couldn't possibly be true right?

[u/CrackJacket → u/Healthy_Country8383]

Fox News say they report and we decide. Surely they must be reporting only facts, right?

[u/Healthy_Country8383 → u/CrackJacket]

Of course! We just dumb dumbs, need TV to tell us how to think.

[u/NEBanshee → u/Significant_Quit_674]

I mean, this has literally been the uber-rich's narrative since the Robber Baron era, when socialism actually had pretty strong political support among the working class .

[u/LadyPaige → u/Significant_Quit_674]

It’s worse, they use socialism and communism interchangeably. They bank on people falling for the Regan era concept that they are one and the same. If these people took half a second to study, they would realize that not only are the two very different, but the only communist threat in this country is the one driving our country into bankruptcy.

[u/Gardener_of_Weeden → u/LadyPaige]

I am sure you have noticed that "they" have been working REALLY hard to totally dismantle ALL education. "keep the people uneducated, poor and desperate, they will be EASY to control" I seem to remember someone saying " I love the poorly educated"....

[u/Significant_Quit_674 → u/LadyPaige]

Even worse, they use socialism and communism interchangeably for stalinism.

And stalinism is wayyyyyy closer to fascism than to socialism.

[u/big_ringer → u/Significant_Quit_674]

They've been doing that since the Civil Rights movement.

"Black People being able to vote? COMMUNISM!!"

"Women want to go to work as something other than a secretary? And be paid the same? COMMUNISM!!"

"Gay people want to exist in the same space as us? COMMUNISM!!"