The appeal of "socialism"

This week's Democratic debates may refocus the President's mind on the threat of socialism, since they put Bernie Sanders back in the spotlight. Until someone finds a way to say that denouncing socialism is inherently racist, Donald Trump should be on safer ground targeting Sanders, though my feeling back in 2016 was that, had Sanders won the Democratic nomination, Trump's likely ranting against socialism during the general-election debates would have left him looking like the archetypal old man yelling at the cloud. It would have made Trump look irrelevant, since he would have seemed to be fighting Cold War battles that no longer mattered much to many people. I'm not sure that approach would strike people the same way in 2020, if only because, for good or ill, the socialism issue fuels the Trump narrative that opposition to himself and his causes is essentially un- or anti-American. "Socialism" may be what you trot out when you can't tell an old white guy to go back where he came from. How such a line of attack will play with younger voters remains unclear. There's been a lot of hand-wringing in recent years about young people's openness to socialist ideas. They're too young to see "socialism" in practice, some say, identifying "socialism" with the worst of the Soviet Union. That may be looking at the problem from the wrong angle. How much of the enthusiasm shown for Sanders and his rivals on the left wing of the Democratic party results from naivete about the history of Marxism, and how much is fueled by increased disdain for capitalism? For all intents and purposes the liberal Democratic ideal of capitalism -- the belief that if you worked hard, you would do well -- is dead. Fewer people are reconciled to the contingency of modern work. Many no doubt ask: why should my life depend on being useful to someone who doesn't have to give a damn about me? To the extent that they saw capitalism as a kind of social contract that delivered security in return for work, they want to make a similar deal, but preferably with the state or "the people" and with no profit motive involved. Refute Marx or any socialist thinker as thoroughly as you can and there'll still be a demand for an alternative to capitalism. Rail against socialism all you want, yet you won't get to the bottom of this widespread discontent. For that reason, an anti-socialist campaign can only have limited appeal, especially if the campaigner stakes everything on identifying socialism completely with Marxism and Leninism. A deeper argument will be necessary to reconcile people to the current economic order -- if that's your goal, that is -- whether by persuading them that no alternative is possible or telling them that their objections are immoral. I don't know if capitalism's most vocal defenders today are capable of that sort of deeper argument -- but then again, I don't know if that'll be necessary next year....