First, it was Rich Lowry and now George Will, two of the right’s most-read political pundits, arguing that all the Democrats running for president are socialists. The political fear-mongering for the 2020 election has begun.
Labels are important for the non-thinking. They neatly categorize candidates into convenient little boxes that too often blur individual differences, ignoring important policy differences.
Conjuring up failed socialistic governments creates an easy bogeyman with which to scare those with knee-jerk reactions to anything less radically right than Mike Lee, Ted Cruz and our great prevaricator in chief.
The truth is that there are a plethora of “socialistic” traditions in America, some of them dating back to before the American Revolution.