The Very Moderate Proposals of the "Democratic Socialists"

 Moderate Democrats Have No Vision of the Future

Democrats must support the so-called “left wing” of the Democratic Party because the members of that wing are the only Democratic politicians who have ideas about how we can move our country forward. The party’s leaders have no ideas. Sen. Chuck Schumer’s campaign web site talks about his positions on various issues mainly from the point of view of his legislative achievements, which have been considerable, but he does not prevent a vision for the future.

If we look at the campaign web sites of aspiring presidential hopefuls Gavin Newsom and J. B. Pritzker, we find a similar void of ideas for the future. Newsom says that he is campaigning to save democracy. Pritzker does not even say that.

Opposition to Trump is not Enough

These politicians are attractive mainly because they are Democrats opposed to the policies of Pres. Trump. They resist the cruelty of his policies toward immigrants. They support the extension of the subsidies that make health insurance if not really affordable at least less ruinously unaffordable than it would be without the subsidies. They supported Pres. Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, and they oppose Pres. Trump’s efforts to gut it and to favor fossil fuels over renewable energy, but again, they do not present a vision of the future.

However, opposing Pres. Trump and defending past actions, are not by themselves a vision of the future. These are backward-looking politicians. They want to preserve the American safety net and Biden’s environmental policies from Trump’s wrecking ball, but they don’t have anything to say about today’s problems or about the American future that they would like to see.

The Party's Left Wing Has Ideas But Does Not Know How to Package Them

In contrast, the campaign web site of Alexandria Ocasio Cortez is chock full of ideas for the future, and so is the web site of Bernie Sanders. These politicians are not running on the past achievements of the party. They are running on a vision of the future, but as national politicians, they have a major weakness: they describe their proposals as “socialist.” “Socialist” and “socialism” are words that do not play well in most parts of the United States. To millions of voters, these words sound too much like “communist” or “communism.” Democratic socialists like Sanders or AOC are not communists or really even socialists, but their vocabulary is a problem.

Repackage the Ideas as in a Realistic Way as Moderate Proposals

What Democrats should do is to take the ideas of the party’s left wing and package them as moderate ideas, which is what they really are. They are in no way revolutionary or even radical. To see what I mean, let us examine a few of those ideas: Medicare for All, Free College and the Green New Deal.

Medicare for All is not a radical idea. On the contrary, it is nothing but the expansion of a successful, existing program to cover more people. Itis precisely the sort of pragmatic, incremental change that has always characterized American politics at its best.

Free post-secondary education at public colleges and universities is also a moderate proposal. In fact, we used to have it. When I attended the University of California in 1958, the tuition was free, and the fees were $140 per semester. Today, the idea of free post-secondary education seems radical, but it is not. It is merely a restoration of the normal, American way to pay for the higher education of our people.

The Green New Deal is a moderate, middle-of-the-road proposal that continues our long-standing policy of promoting the development of energy sources.  We have always believed that adequate supplies of energy were crucial to the development of our economy, and the Green New Deal merely redirects our energy policy toward promoting new energy sources that fit our country’s current needs in a time when the use of fossil fuels is endangering our country and its economy. Again, that is not radical. It is precisely the sort of pragmatic, incremental change that has always made our country successful.

Progressive candidates should promote policies like Medicare for All, Free Post-secondary education and the Green New Deal and should frame them as moderate policies . The American far right likes to describe them as "radical" or "socialist," but we should not allow the right to frame the discussion in that way. We should insist on framing Medicare for All, Free Post-secondary education and the Green New Deal as the moderate, middle of the road policies that they really are. We should adopt our party's best ideas, and we should explain over and over again why they are truly moderate proposals in the best pragmatic, American political tradition.