Will America become socialist now that Biden has basically won?

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PrayForMe said:
He is many things, but Biden is not a socialist.
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He is not a Socialist; and he is in effect a figurehead, as his speech patterns and difficulties in communicating appear, for all practical purposes, to indicate that he is gradually showing increasing signs of a loss of cognitive abilities.

And for anyone who tries to tell me that he was responsible for picking his running mate, I have some beautiful oceanfront property for sale in Arizona. I would give a whole lot to have recordings of the top Democratic players who put Harris as his running mate, considering how she did (or didn’t do) in the Primaries. The reasoning behind her choice would be… interesting.

She is being passed off as a “moderate” with the press bleating about how she is so supportive of Israel; they totally ignore her voting record while in the Senate.
 
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Mostly seems like semantics to me. I think she’s very, very far left myself.
 
0Scarlett_nidiyilii said:
calling them safe havens for hate or some such accusation.
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I’ve done the research on this one, seeking out primary sources.

Here is an example of this claim:


The source of the claims is in this article (I will break the link intentionally, but, I am including the full text of Mr Biden’s original quote):

https:// epgn. com/2020/10/28/ biden-pledges-support-to-lgbtq-community/

The idea of “religious freedom” as a reason to allow discrimination has stoked divisiveness in this country. What can we do as a country to ensure that discrimination against LGBTQ people, no matter how it’s justified, does not happen?

Trump has deliberately tried to gut protections for the LGBTQ+ community by creating broad religious exemptions to existing nondiscrimination laws and policies that allow businesses, medical providers, and adoption agencies to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people. We need to root out discrimination in our laws, institutions, and public spaces. Religion should not be used as a license to discriminate, and as president I will oppose legislation to deny LGBTQ+ equal treatment in public places. I will immediately reverse discriminatory practices that Trump put in place and work to advance the rights of LGBTQ+ people widely.

After reading the entire, original article, it is stretching at gnats and swallowing camels to twist Mr Biden’s words.

More of Mr. Biden’s platform:

 
Dolphin said:
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johnz123:
She’s farther left than Bernie Sanders.
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This is simply not true and is a common inflammatory statement used to drum up fear. How ‘right or left’ someone is, is a measure of ideology not partisanship. Her voting record could be 100% Democrat and Bernie Sanders could be 40% Democrat, that does not make her ‘more left’ or ‘more liberal’ than Bernie Sanders.

This is the classic conflating of partisanship and ideology which is simply untrue.
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Here is that ranking list

 
Raxus said:
I think she’s very, very far left myself.
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This reminds me of something I saw recently, I think it was on Facebook - Remember that the left wing and the right wing both belong to the same bird. (or words to that effect).
 
@Sarcelle, @whatistrue, thank you for answering.

So “socialism” in the US could mean about everything on the spectrum from historical socialism to “modern” socialism (like the French “social-liberalism”) to any kind of left-leaning policy, depending on who is talking?
 
If the Republicans keep control of the Senate by winning several Georgia elections for Senator, a slew of Socialist legislation will be forestalled.
If the Democrats take control of the Senate, they will control the government–and to those who do not think Socialism will become the rule, wait and see. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.
 
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Pretty much, yep. People do like their buzzwords; to one group anyone to the left of Joe McCarthy is a socialist or even communist, while to another group anyone to the right of Bernie Sanders is a Nazi/fascist. Not much love for those of us in the middle, even though we are larger in numbers than many realize. It’s just that we don’t yell so much and don’t get as much press attention.
 
phil19034 said:
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Dolphin:
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johnz123:
She’s farther left than Bernie Sanders.
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This is simply not true and is a common inflammatory statement used to drum up fear. How ‘right or left’ someone is, is a measure of ideology not partisanship. Her voting record could be 100% Democrat and Bernie Sanders could be 40% Democrat, that does not make her ‘more left’ or ‘more liberal’ than Bernie Sanders.

This is the classic conflating of partisanship and ideology which is simply untrue.
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Here is that ranking list

Report Cards for 2019 - Ideology Score - All Senators - GovTrack.us
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I just looked at the House rankings… what’s really scary here is that not only is Kamala Harris ranked the most liberal person in the Senate, she’s tied for the most liberal person in both houses combined.

Kamala’s ideology score = 0.00 (which is 100% left). Only one member of the House ranks with a 0.00, and that is Rep Barbara Lee (CA-13)

Bernie Sanders scored a 0.02 and The Squad scored:
  • AOC = 0.09
  • Rashida Tlaib = 0.08
  • Ilhan Omar = 0.07
  • Ayanna Pressley = 0.06
NOTE: I don’t think this automatically means that Kamala is more socialist than Bernie and the Squad. But I do think it means that she (along with Rep Barbara Lee) are the most partisan Democrats in Congress.

 
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That’s pretty much it.

Depends on who you talk to.

I’ve been accused of being socialist by some here on this forum, because I was for affordable healthcare.

I was then accused of supporting government provided healthcare even though I never said anything about such a thing. Affordable healthcare may or may not be from the government. Is it socialist to not want to have medical bills that can potentially bankrupt people?
 
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Sarcelle said:
Is it socialist to not want to have medical bills that can potentially bankrupt people?
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I guess it’s a rhetorical question, but even the most right-wing French governments we’ve had recently would have said “no”, even if they’ve increased a bit what people who can afford it pay for healthcare. Healthcare is still completely free for the poorest.

It’s very interesting to see how the identity markers which define one side or the other of the political spectrum vary from country to country.
 
phil3 said:
You wrote this

Not this
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I know you wish to be right.
And apparently are willing to distort what others say to build your own straw men to knock around.

I stand by what I said…present standings have a deadlocked Senate and a small majority in the house.

What exactly are you arguing about anyway?
 
phil3 said:
How is it DOA? Did I miss something? Did the house flip?
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While the House did not flip, Republicans added seats; I think it was Nancy who was prediciting the Dems would add 10 seats; where they actuall lost at least 5 (a spread of 15).

And the Senate is still in pay, depending on the outcome of a January election runoff for two seats. I am not an odds maker, but there does not seem to be any movement (beyond the Presidency) to set up the projected “blue landslide” so eagerly anticipated before the election.

Should the Senate retain a majority (51 or 52) after Georgia gets through the runoff, neither Joe nor Kamala will succeed in ramming through the New Green Deal, raising taxes which were lowered, or a number of the other Progressive plans.

Would I say that the presidency is DOA? No, they will still push their desired legislation, but the “blue” has a distinctly pinkish overtone in terms of change.

Certainly Joe will make any number of changes by executive order which will overturn Trump’s executive orders. But an overview of the election beyond the presidency indicates that Americans were not buying into the Progressive agenda nationwide; flipping governors flopped; flipping legislatures flopped (with some longer term effects), flipping the Senate appears to have a decent chance of flopping, increasing the House Dems position flopped seriously, and the “blue landslide” slid a bit down the other side of the hill.

Joe, with multi years in the Senate and Kamala with some time under her belt in the Senate will come courting, and democracy according to the Democrats will not come to a sliding halt.

But America, while not (most likely) putting Trump in for another 4 years, seems far more willing to accept something approaching status quo than to a Progressive agenda.
 
Well the senate is going to end the fake filibuster rule. So they can pass anything with a 50 +1 vote. Romney will be voting with them and so will Collins
 
whatistrue said:
This reminds me of something I saw recently, I think it was on Facebook - Remember that the left wing and the right wing both belong to the same bird. (or words to that effect).
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If only that were still the case.
 
Raxus said:
If only that were still the case.
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Well, that’s the thing - it is the case whether we act like it or not. Republicans and Democrats and Independents are all American. If we don’t learn to settle our differences civilly we are looking at the loss of all we hold dear. All of us.
 
OddBird said:
So “socialism” in the US could mean about everything on the spectrum from historical socialism to “modern” socialism (like the French “social-liberalism”) to any kind of left-leaning policy, depending on who is talking?
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I think that encapsulates it pretty well. My observation is that, leading up to the recent election, socialism/socialist became most used pejorative labels applied to “left-leaning” candidates by those opposed who, as my departed grandfather used to say, “wouldn’t recognize it if it hit them in the buttocks with a bass fiddle.”
 
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whatistrue said:
If we don’t learn to settle our differences civilly we are looking at the loss of all we hold dear. All of us.
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I get that. I think we’re too far gone, personally. I do think some shady things happened with this election, and I think it’s going to end in flames. I don’t hold out much hope.

I’m largely just going to live my life, and quietly prepare to go vanish somewhere if things get dicey in the next decade or two.
 
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