Despite its Popularity, American Socialism has Distinct Challenges

It took the excitement generated through the political campaign of a self-described socialist, Bernie Sanders, to place into stark relief the extent to which the United States politics system fails to reflect and respond to the aspirations of most Americans.

That is because decades of revenue stagnation have transformed political attitudes in ways that do not appear mirrored in Washington. A recent Marketplace-Edison opinion poll suggests that though they might not know it, many Americans, at one time hostile to socialism, have become democratic socialists. Their socialism isn’t the version that called for the public ownership of the means of manufacturing. Rather, what they support are programs that reduce the risks that accompany life in a market culture.

The survey, released late recently, asked a representative sample of Americans about their attitudes toward 7 different “safety net” programs – the kind that characterize democratic socialism in Europe and they are espoused by socialists elsewhere. Because Bernie Sanders has put it: “20 years back when people here thought about socialism they were thinking about the Soviet Union, about Albania. Description of how the think about Scandinavia.”

The results of that study were astonishing in their consistency across age groups, gender, as well as ethnicity. More than 80% of participants supported unemployment benefits for those who have lost their jobs, meals stamps for the poor, college assistance for low-income families and job training programs.

Subsidies for health care benefits (78.2%) and for college tuition assistance to middle-income families (75.3%) recorded only slightly ‘abnormal’ amounts of support. The poorest level of support was with regard to programs to help pay home loans, but even here a big part offered approval (56.4%).

Yet we have a campaign finance system that makes it almost impossible for someone actually advocating socialist ideas to woo enough of the actual handful of donors with heavy pockets necessary to win.

Only a general change in the way we finance elections will make the end result more reflective of the will of Americans.

A socialist’s Achilles heel

The large crowds of people Sanders attracts reveal the appeal of socialist ideas in the United States. Advocating for beefing up social safety nets is exactly what has propelled Sanders to 30% support in the latest forms, not so far behind Hillary Clinton’utes 53%.

Sanders' socialism has not prevented his candidacy through receiving extensive small-donor financial assistance. As of the end of September, the campaign has received US$41 million, almost none of which went to supportive outside groups and three-quarters of which were contributions of $200 or even less. More than a million people have been willing to promote their left-of-center beliefs with contributions towards the Sanders campaign.

However, while this support is impressive, finance is the Achilles heel of socialist electoral politics. While democratic socialists may propose popular ideas, they are forced to rely on small donors. In contrast to Sanders, Clinton’s campaign has gotten $77 million, which, when added to the $20 million received through outside groups that assistance her, amounts to more than twice the level of funding that is available to Sanders. Only 17% of the money Clinton has gotten comes in amounts of $200 or much less.

While Sanders' credibility as an electable candidate benefits from his reliance on grassroots support, that very same reliance places him at a decided disadvantage when it comes to installation a campaign that could actually secure the Democratic Party’s nomination. Small-donor contributions do not add up to the level required if victory is the goal.

A bias inherent in the system

Clinton’s financing advantage faithfully reflects the actual bias that exists in a privately funded political system. Candidates receive financing through wealthy individuals and institutions and then adopt positions harmoniously with donor preferences.

Whatever you could say about Clinton, she is not the socialist. She is liberal, but moderately so. Therefore, since there are plenty of big donors who espouse reasonable to liberal views and virtually none who are socialists, Sanders cannot win in the funding competition – the race that within our system determines electability.

Nevertheless, Sanders and his supporters have demonstrated that there is enough space in the political program to promote socialist ideas. What he or she and they must next do is devise a strategy which will in the future allow a candidate such as Sanders to actually win an political election.

To be realistic about candidates who advocate socialist principles becoming president, one must overcome the handicap associated with private political financing.

For that to happen, those socialist concepts need to be applied to the politics sphere. Just as socialists advocate the public sector act in order to offset the excessive inequality that comes forth from the market economy, so it is that the same public sector can be enlisted to provide a reverse to the disproportionate power of personal wealth in the electoral system.

What is required is the option of running for office with sufficient public money to make victory over independently funded candidates a realistic possibility.

Public campaign funding

The irony in this is the fact that a partial public funding system for presidential primary elections and a complete public funding system for that general election for that office already exists.

It began within 1976 in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal and has survived juridical scrutiny since then.

It has nevertheless, fallen into disuse because the funding levels that it provides fall far short of the levels which candidates can raise from private sources. Because of that, less candidates are choosing to take the money (and the spending restraints that go along with it), culminating within President Barack Obama’s decision to reject public funding within 2008. His opponent, Senator John McCain, accepted $84 million in federal funds that cycle, whilst Obama raised $745 million.

Can we change the system?

What would be required to resuscitate the system is increasing funding levels so that candidates using the program would no longer be at a devastating financial disadvantage. Securing this kind of increases would require treating the entire thrust of cuts in government spending which has characterized the politics from the last 35 years.

That will be difficult to achieve. A massive grassroots political mobilization in its support will have to happen.

The potential for such mobilization does exist. It’s present among not only the people who contribute to the Sanders campaign and people who in the primary elections will vote for him. It also exists among the most of the public whose views had been represented in the Marketplace-Edison survey.

To choose a president who will promote the democratic socialist positions endorsed in the survey, the country will very first have to create a political dimension to democratic socialism the generous public funding of election strategies.

How campaign finance disenfranchises America’s quiet majority of socialists is republished with permission from The Conversation