Trump's plane full of uniformed people comment is an interesting one--even Laura Ingraham didn't seem too interested in hearing more. Can't wait to see some evidence on that one.
Badge, people who want psuedo-fascist clown shows can look elsewhere, too. And there's always Somalia--the libertarian Disneyland. Most "socialists" I know are called socialists because they want government-run healthcare (as is done in most democratic, capitalist nations), and to focus more government spending on social safety net programs, which requires higher tax rates. Most of those people aren't close to marxists.
As Truman said in 1952 (you can snopes it, it's true):
[Republican Senator Robert] Taft explained that the great issue in this campaign is “creeping socialism.” Now that is the patented trademark of the special interest lobbies. Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years.
Socialism is what they called public power.
Socialism is what they called social security.
Socialism is what they called farm price supports.
Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance.
Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations.
Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.
When the Republican candidate inscribes the slogan “Down With Socialism” on the banner of his “great crusade,” that is really not what he means at all.
What he really means is, “Down with Progress — down with Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal,” and “down with Harry Truman’s fair Deal.” That is what he means.
Now, to this day many Republicans don't like FDR's New Deal, but it's a pretty big stretch to say that he wasn't 100% American.
I hope I would have voted for Ike rather than Robert (son of moderate-progressive William Howard) Taft, but what Truman was accusing him of saying is not right-wing wackadoo stuff. Those were all incremental steps toward socialism.
We aren't a socialist country. Not yet, anyway. But we are closer to it than we were in 1930, before Hoover's proto-New Deal and FDR's genuine article.
And we were closer to it in 1920 (although actually even closer to proto-fascism) than we were in 1890, before the Progressives had their crack at fundamentally transforming America (including resegregating much of it).
We are much more dependent upon the federal government, and much less dependent on ourselves, our families, and our neighbors than we were in 1890.
Some of that is inevitable in a more complex society. But there are good cases to be made that not every new program is a net improvement over the greater degree of liberty we had before.
As for Truman's last point--
of course that was what Taft was saying. "Down with the New Deal." "Down with the Fair Deal." It's what I would say could I go back in time to 1952.
H.L. Mencken, who was not a nice man in many respects, had this to say about Truman's 1948 campaign: “If there had been any formidable body of cannibals in the country he would have promised to provide them with free missionaries, fattened at the taxpayers’ expense.”
