The Land of the Free, and the Home of the Socialists: Part I

"AMERICA WILL NEVER BE A SOCIALIST COUNTRY", Donald Trump mis-spoke, as usual. As usual, Donald Trump was dead wrong. Actually, in large part, it (the U.S.) already is a socialist country, and long has been. In 1825 Robert Owen gave two three hour speeches before Congress. Owen, a wealthy businessman manufacturer from Wales, was a socialist ideologically, if not practically. In front of America's political leaders he railed against concentrated wealth, (somewhat hypocritically), against social and economic inequality, and against working class poverty. A regular Bernie Sanders, or maybe George Soros, of his time. But he was optimistic about the future, and predicted the coming of a new system cooperative economics, and a liberation from what he called "the brutality of capitalism". (we're still working on that). Owen called his visionary system "socialism". Sound familiar? Yes, he coined the term "socialism", to use capitalist parlance. John Quincy Adams, James Monroe, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, men well known to everyone, along with several supreme Court justices, listened with interest and qualified agreement, nascent socialists all. They don't teach this in high school, but of course they don't teach a lot of stuff in high school, such as Jefferson's aversion to Christianity and America's quasi-socialist origins. Intellectuals world wide also harkened, many of whom concurred and expanded on this concept in their own writings. Ever since, there has been a numerically sizeable socialist community in the United States, one largely overlooked by hagiographic historians and high school social science classes in Republican states. This communitiy is and alwasy has been of sufficient size to merit the description "mainstream", despite denial of this reality among conservatives and their false historical narratives. For the present, look to Bernie Sanders and his strong support base, which very nearly and still could propel him to the presidency. (If Trump can do it, damned near anybody can.)