Feeding the Fear of Socialism in America

A reader notes:

South Florida Cubans, who are amongst the biggest enrollees and beneficiaries of the Affordable Care Act per capita, anywhere in all the United States, voted en masse for the man whose stated goal is to destroy and eliminate the ACA.

All they hear from Trump and associates is that Biden will bring socialism to the US. Many either fled Cuba under Castro’s rule or are descendants of those who fled. The GOP feeds their fears rather than being honest.

Well, expecting honesty in politics is like expecting your dog to teach himself to play the violin, and this is especially true of the Republican Party of 2020, whose only campaign strategy is appealing to the lowest-level emotions of which human beings are capable. If it weren’t so extraordinarily able to tap into the fear, prejudice, hatred, and sorrow of poorly educated people, the GOP would be completely irrelevant in today’s political scene.

In particular, the fear that a Biden presidency will bring socialism to the United States is completely baseless. Biden isn’t even remotely on the left; he’s a garden-variety centrist. The belief that Biden will function differently than Obama in any meaningful way is completely unfounded–unless you’re listening to Fox News, in which case that’s all you’re going to hear.

That said, playing to people’s fears doesn’t begin and end with socialism; it extends to fear of immigration, to lawlessness, to government control over our lives. Ask yourself what eight years of Obama was like across these issues, and expect a rubber stamp from Biden.

In addition, Biden is hardly an idealogue; he’s not incapable of an original thought, but he’ll largely be taking the advice of his epidemiologists, military generals, environmental scientists, educators, climate scientists, and the other experts whose careers have driven them to the pinnacle of knowledge in their particular disciplines. If you or I were charged with the responsibility of bringing the Unites States back from the brink of fascism, civil war, an out-of-control pandemic, environmental collapse, and a failing educational system, I’d expect we’d do precisely the same.