You Live in a Social Democracy

Yes, I’m talking about America.

Following the improbable win of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a self-described “Democratic Socialist”, Americans are being forced to confront the scary boogeyman known as socialism and what it actually means.

The truth is every American today, whether they are able to acknowledge it or not, has been living, embracing and depending on the socialist policies of the United States for decades. Though socialism had yet to be conceived as an ideology, the founding fathers had written it into the constitution by granting the government the indefinite power to tax and spend money in order to provide for the general welfare of the country. Socialism is responsible for the clean drinking water pumped into your house, the military, the police, the fire department, hospitals, schools, universities, public transportation, trains, buses, bridges, our court system and about a million other things. 

The emergence of the new young and fresh face of socialism is opening our national dialogue on what socialism really means. For too long in America, socialism has been a  bad word. Any policy proposal over the the last 50 years that could be categorized as being remotely beneficial to anyone outside of the corporate business class could be cast away as the cliché ‘slippery slope’ that leads to the evils of socialism. 

Today, a new younger generation of Americans are beginning to claim their position on the political landscape and they do not lug with them the irrational fear of socialism that had been indoctrinated into past generations. Millennials are experiencing a much different world than the generations before them.  They have taken on 300% more student debt than their parents did. In order to pay for a 4 year education at a public university, millennials must work 4,459 minimum wage hours. In 1973 the number of minimum wage hours needed to pay for four years of public college was 306. Millennials are half as likely to own a home as young adults were in 1975. One in five is living in poverty and based on current trends, millennials will not be able to retire until at least the age of 75. Due to declining wages, lack of steady employment and the incredible growth in the cost of health insurance, Americans aged 26 to 34 have the highest uninsured rate in the country and, incredibly, have more collective medical debt than the much older baby boomers. 

It is time we acknowledge the great success of the socialist programs in United States, such as Social Security and Medicare, call them what they are (socialism), expand them (Medicare For All), and create new programs that improve the general welfare of the American people (Tuition Free College).