Pssst! Don't call it socialism, especially in the Midwest. Pass it along.
New York magazine writer Eric Levitz admits in his July 3 article that the socialism of Democratic-Socialist candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of the Bronx by way of Westchester County might be a tough sell to voters in the Midwest. His solution is to rebrand that leftist ideology in a way to make socialism somehow palatable to them. Levitz makes his palatability proposals in Ocasio-Cortez’s Socialism Can Work in the Midwest — With a Rebrand:
Last week, a 28-year-old socialist — who had campaigned on a call to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — defeated the chairman of the House Democratic caucus in a primary election.
...On Sunday, Illinois senator Tammy Duckworth told CNN that, while Ocasio-Cortez was “the future of the party in the Bronx, where she is … I think that you can’t win the White House without the Midwest and I don’t think you can go too far to the left and still win the Midwest.”
Uh-oh.
Certain aspects of Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign were tailored to an electorate of working-class Bronxites, and young, highly educated gentrifiers (who are, for the moment, one of the core constituencies for far-left politics in the U.S.). Democratic candidates in heavily white, rural swing districts probably wouldn’t benefit by adopting the slogans “abolish ICE” and “democratic socialism.” Those phrases are radical, by design; their purpose is to galvanize activist energy — and expand the boundaries of political possibility — by articulating a vision of transformative change. And they’ve proven quite effective at serving those functions.
But they aren’t optimal slogans for the Democratic Party in heavily white, nonurban swing districts — and were never meant to be.
Levitz's solution is to rebrand those offending slogans in order to fool what he must think are a bunch of gullible Midwest hayseeds:
“Abolish ICE” either means an end to all internal immigration enforcement (a very reasonable idea, but one that will sound unreasonable, at least at first, to many voters that Democrats need to win this fall), or else, a progressive reorganization of the federal government’s immigration-enforcement bureaucracy (an idea that will sound very boring to many voters that Democrats need to win this fall).
Perhaps a new slogan is needed such as "Rebrand Abolish ICE!"
Meanwhile, although socialism is coming back into fashion among the young, that word’s approval rating is still lower than Donald Trump’s with voters over 30.
Hmmm... Then perhaps rebrand socialism as "Freebies for Everybody!"
Both Medicare for All and single-payer health care enjoy majority support in recent polling from the Kaiser Family Foundation. Data for Progress (DFP), a progressive think tank, used demographic information from Kaiser’s poll to estimate the level of support for Medicare for All in individual states. Its model suggests that, in a 2014 turnout environment — which is to say, one that assumes higher turnout for Republican constituencies — a majority of voters in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania would all support a socialist takeover of the health-insurance industry (so long as you didn’t put the idea to them in those terms).
Yeah, don't call it "socialist takeover of the health-insurance industry" despite the fact it is the most accurate description.
The most radical economic policy on Ocasio-Cortez’s platform — a federal job guarantee — meanwhile, actually polls quite well in “flyover country.”
Thanks to the successful economic policies of President Donald Trump, full employment already guarantees a job to almost anybody willing to work.
There are a lot of reasonable, technocratic objections to the job guarantee as a policy. But polling suggests that there is majoritarian support for a massive public-jobs program of some kind — and that framing said program as “guaranteed jobs” might be politically effective.
Levitz thinks that particular bit of framing just might fool the voters in the "flyover country" Midwest better than "redistribute the wealth."
But if one asks the question, “Should the government concentrate its immigration-enforcement resources on combating violent criminals and gang activity, instead of going after law-abiding day laborers?” I suspect you’d find more support for the democratic socialist point of view.
Hmmm... So class warfare rebranded as "increase the salience of class identity."
...there’s little reason to think that a customized version of Ocasio-Cortez’s class-centric, social-democratic politics can’t thrive in the Rust Belt.
Okay, here's the deal, Eric. For this rebranding of socialism shtick to work, you can't let the voters know that is exactly what you are doing to fool them. So if you don't tell, I won't tell.
