Going Socialist

 BIG CITIES tend to be progressive politically, full of  Democrats. Republicans tend to dominate small towns, rural areas, and to lurk in wilderness areas, approximating savagery. the suburbs are up for grabs, are where the action is. since an increasingly high percentage of Americans live in urban areas, the U.S. is becoming a more progressive country, as indicated by the fact that the Democratic presidential candidate has won the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections. In Buffalo new York, the first female mayor was recently elected, who is also the first Democratic socialist mayor. socialists have been elected to positions of high political office before, of course, but only relatively rarely. The next most recent socialist mayor was elected in 1960. Largely forgotten is that late in the nineteenth and early in the twentieth centuries, the so called "progressive era", a wave of socialism swept through the country, in response to America's industrial revolution, which brought about industrialization, an explosion of factories, urban laborers, exploitation of labor by the so called "robber baron" corporate owners, an incredible level of concentration of wealth, as incredible as today, and the resultant labor union formation and labor strife, including nearly strikes. In 1920 a socialist candidate for president, Eugene V. Debs, got more than one million votes, even though he was in jail on election day, for fomenting unrest among labor unions. In 1932 other socialist and communist candidates got a combined one million votes, and a socialist, Franklin D. Roosevelt, was elected president, and reelected three more times, although neither he nor anyone who supported him actually called him a "socialist". those who opposed and hated him openly called him a "socialist", which by that time had already become as bad an insult as could be aimed at anyone, particularly a politician. When I asked my mother, who was born in 1920 whether she voted for Roosevelt, she told me she would answer my question in two different ways, which she did; "No', and "Hell no". I came from a family of rock solid dairy farming republicans, who despised FDR and all he stood for. I consider him among my heroes. When, in an industrial society, the concentration of wealth becomes extreme and labor is exploited with low wages and poor working condition, socialism emerges. Socialism is reemerging today, Bernie Sanders has run for president twice, calling himself a "Democratic Socialist", and has done quite well both times. it is not inconceivable that he would have beaten Donald Trump, either in 2016 or 2020. the important thing to remember about socialism is that today's America is full of it. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting something which is socialistic, meaning "government" economics,  and despite what your average conservative will tell you, every one in the country, in one way or another, benefits from socialism, whether or not she chooses to acknowledge it.