America will Never Be a Socialist County...

geneiustimes.com

     I tend to agree with this quote from President Trump that was part of his State of the Union address from one month ago.
     Yes. “America will never be a socialist country,” unless we start electing more representatives, senators, and, perhaps, even a President that are socialists. Could that happen? I am not certain I can say never. It could happen.
     I never ever thought that Donald Trump could have become President of the United States. Yet, here we are. His tough no nonsense message and his "Make America Great Again" branding resonated with enough people who voted for him. They voted for him despite weekly gaffs, errors, and crude and insensitive remarks that would have deep sixed any other Presidential campaign in recent memory. Enough voted for him, with or without Russia’s help, despite truthful vs. fake news, to get him elected.
     Immediately, about half of the country was besides themselves and started feeling disenfranchised themselves. They seem to be disenfranchised as much, albeit on the opposite political extreme, as the disenfranchised Americans that voted Trump into office. The Trump supporting disenfranchised felt so isolated that the wanted something different. They wanted someone to come in and shake Washington up. The wanted someone who would bring jobs back, stop illegal immigration, and fix the trade deficit. They wanted this because they bought into a promise, a campaign promise mind you, that by doing this our lives would be better than they were.
     The newly disenfranchised created by the Trump election, have a different point of view. They are shocked and dismayed that social programs that were in place and they valued were being dismantled by the President brought in to “shake things up.” The social programs they were hoping would someday be enacted, seemed farther away than ever. These folks had a voice in the last presidential election. It was Bernie Sanders and he made an impressive run only to have to yield the nomination to Hilary Clinton whose unlikability with too many moderate minded voters cost the democrats the election.
     In the vacuum created by the Trump election, we are now seeing a posse of Democrats running for President that include Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Kamala Harris. They all seem to be on Socialist side of the spectrum even though I am not sure if Warren and Harris appreciate be labelled as such. They are all left of center and espouse platforms that can easily be viewed as socialist.
    New York representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez has taken a lot of the limelight from the others and she is not even running for President at this time. She comes right out and calls herself a Democratic Socialist and is advocating for Medicare for all, free college education for all, federal jobs guarantee, and criminal justice reform. I hope somewhere in there she wants to fix up our crumbling infrastructure. How will she pay for it? More taxes and especially more taxes to the super rich. Even then, can we afford everything she wants? It doesn’t matter, if it is what people that are disenfranchised want to hear. If it resonates and gives people a good feeling about their future, they will gladly vote for her or Bernie or whoever.
     Health care and higher education costs have risen six times the rate of inflation. Half of the politicos will tell you that this is because there has been too much government involvement and the other half attribute it too not enough government involvement. They are both partially right and partially wrong. Polarized debates that have taken use from Bush to Obama to Trump and perhaps a socialist to follow seems like a system out of control and flipping between extremes. It is quite dizzying and dismaying to a centrist like me.