Getting Along

USUALLY I GET ALONG with Democrats. Actually, I usually get along with Republicans, if we don't talk politics, which I never do. If they bring it up, its on, as we say. The lady, if I recall, was referring to a demoratic socialist poltician, maybe Bernie Sanders, and her remark was to the efffect that voting for a socialist was a wasted vote, because the American people don't go for socialism. In truth we the American people do indeed like socialism, as long as we don't call it "socialism", as evidenced by the ubiquitous, pervasive socialism throughout American society, from Social Security, public highways, and all the rest. Instead of responding by telling her that,I simply said: "FDR was a socialist, although he didnt call himself that". (He feared that if he did, he would lose. He was probably wrong about that,considering the complete lack of popularity of incumbant Herbert Hoover, but, he didn't want to take any chances. Only His political opponents called FDR a "Socialist", for all the good it did them, and they were quite correct). She,the confused lady came back with something snarky, like: "Who told you that ? You're confused." I stayed calm, and said: "FDR signed into law a comprehensive New Deal program of socialistic programs, including Social Security" I thought that would settle it. It didn't. "That doesn't mean he was a soialist. You're confused"...The confusion thing, again. I had half expected her to deny that Social Security is socialism,like conservatives do.She instead surprised me with the utter stypidity of her response. She seemed to be agreeing that FDR's "New Deal" was indeed socialism,which it was, but still insisted that the New Dealer himself was not a socialist. I keep thinkng about that, but still don't get it. For the first time, her accusation about my being confused is right on the mark. I am confused as to how on Earth or anywhere else an ostensibly intelligent human being can acknowledge that the policies of a political leader are socialistic, and in the same breath deny that the political leader is a socialist. Socialist is as socialist does, correct? Didn't Forrest Gump clearly point that out? I'm learning to walk away from intrasigent stupidity and willful stubbornness in my old age. (I wish I had learned it earlier). Therefore I never had a chance to point out to her that not only did the socialist FDR remain in the White House for a seeming eternity, for more than a decade, but that in today's political arena Bernie Sanders hasdone right well for himself, and that early in the twentieth century several socialist and communist presidential candidates ran and received millions of votes,and that there are many instances of socialist and even communist candidates for state and local offices running and winning, then and now, many of them even while identifying themsleves as communist and socialist. This was particularly true during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, during the "progressive era",and the great depression, when many Americans were desperate and willing to try anything. Well, no matter. Had I pressed these facts upon her, she would undoubtedly have insisted that all that doesn't mean that these politicians were really communists or socialists, and, in any event, I am confused. Indeed I am, but not exactly in the way the lady seemed to think.