I encountered this Infographic on Facebook because of an acquaintance I made in Little Rock. After reading some of the Trumpist responses like “of course Cruz isn’t this and Trump isn’t that!”, I felt I needed to dig a little deeper, resulting in the “comment” that follows the graphics.
Ted Cruz as theocrat? Check. He’s against the establishment clause while interpreting freedom of religion as a license to discriminate, and to use the state to do it. Freedom of religion includes freedom from other people’s religion. His most craven moment of fundamentalist pandering was appearing at the stone-the-gays minister’s event during the campaign. He keeps lovely company.
Trump is more the oligarch than Clinton at this point, with a record number of billionaire, Goldman Sachs appointments in his government. I rate him more an authoritarian kleptocrat, but the first time he shows up at a missile parade (he said that) wearing something with medals and gold buttons based off his childhood VFMA uniform, I’ll reconsider.
Clinton’s more establishmentarian which is why Bernie really did her damage. That sense of entitlement and the false security of being swaddled in Clinton World were huge weak points. Still, she was the most viable to me in part because she wasn’t likely to overturn the apple cart. Unfortunately that also meant she couldn’t run a good campaign in this political environment with its unrealistic love affair with outsiders.
So clearly this infographic is from a Bernie supporter. I never got a feel for how far on the socialist side Bernie really is, and it’s hard to believe he’s a text-book “democratic socialist” type. Also true, the US is not a pure capitalist society; our “modified capitalism” includes socialist ideas like fire departments, interstate highways, medicare, social security, and a public commitment to science that gave us these lovely computers and Internet to debate such things on.
We’re not Denmark, but we’re much closer to Denmark’s democratic euro-socialism than the kind of hell pure capitalism or pure socialism (or any pure -ism) would be. Neither government nor the free market solve every problem most efficiently and effectively, so it’s a balancing act. The government is good for needs and to enable free and fair markets. The free market is good with wants and innovation. Each has its own domain, and both need each other to build an environment conducive to both. Symbiosis.
Trump’s going to get us closer to pure ism hell by breaking down institutions and removing protections so his cronies can engorge themselves. Eventually we’ll find the happy medium between socialism and capitalism provided the whole thing doesn’t crash and burn.