One who believes in a secular nation where the state regulates income, welfare, and the economy, and desires a minimal private sector.
How could America get a socialist president?
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One who believes in a secular nation where the state regulates income, welfare, and the economy, and desires a minimal private sector.
There are all sorts of problems with this definition. First of all, there are Christian Socialists who do not desire a secular nation. Second, socialists are by no means necessarily statists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism (just as statists are not necessarily socialists).
Alright.
Anyone who wants comprehensive welfare, redistribution of wealth, and governmental intervention in the economy.
Depending on what you mean by comprehensive welfare, that could describe even the most conservative Democrats we have around today.
Well, my definition of socialism is far from concrete, as it's a vague term.
There are many brands of socialism: Christian socialism, revolutionary socialism, social democracy.
It all depends on what precise sort of socialism you're referring to.
The main factor is the desire to redistribute wealth and opposition to laissez-faire economics and big business.
I don't think this is impossible, but it probably requires quite a bit to go differently both domestically and internationally in the first couple decades of the 20th Century or the last decade of the 19th.
First, it's easier to imagine a socialist winning the presidency if the Socialists can amalgamate with Western progressives (think LaFollette followers) and populist remnants. Greater radicalism among American unions would help (the IWW's early 20th Century success suggests that was possible). Ultimately, it's easier to imagine a socialist party being a broad tent Labor Party drawing from urban populations and Western rural populists.
You also need to have it displace one of the two major parties, either by forcing rump factions of the Democrats and Republicans to merge or by completely displacing one of them. Hard to say which is easier to displace. Republicans were OTL dominant throughout most of this period, but Democrats arguably had a more unshakeable base, given their dominance of the South. For this reason, I suspect you have to have the Republicans collapse at some point in the 20s or 30s, since most of the states that could vote socialist or "Labor" would be in the north.
Also need to avoid WWI and the first Red Scare.
First, it's easier to imagine a socialist winning the presidency if the Socialists can amalgamate with Western progressives (think LaFollette followers) and populist remnants. Greater radicalism among American unions would help (the IWW's early 20th Century success suggests that was possible). Ultimately, it's easier to imagine a socialist party being a broad tent Labor Party drawing from urban populations and Western rural populists.
You also need to have it displace one of the two major parties, either by forcing rump factions of the Democrats and Republicans to merge or by completely displacing one of them. Hard to say which is easier to displace. Republicans were OTL dominant throughout most of this period, but Democrats arguably had a more unshakeable base, given their dominance of the South. For this reason, I suspect you have to have the Republicans collapse at some point in the 20s or 30s, since most of the states that could vote socialist or "Labor" would be in the north.
Also need to avoid WWI and the first Red Scare.
I was imagining the socialists and the populists forming one big tent left-wing party, probably called the Labour Party.
And about replacing one of the major parties, I was imagining the pro-business segments of the Democratic and Republican parties joining forces.
frlmerrin
Banned
I seem to have hit a nerve? None the less it is quite reasonable to cast FDR as a Socialist. Look how many of his policies and responses to the depression and the World War were Socialist policies. Basing you rejection of this claim on a single incident seems quite weak especially as nationalising banks is not necessarily a Socialist thing to do. Atlee didn't and I'd like you to tell me he wasn't a Socialist with a straight face.
It's a very political statement that is often used to red-bait. He may have been a socialist, but he was more of a social democrat than anything. What we are looking for is a self-proclaimed socialist, not an FDR-like figure with some socialistic policies.
Is this a joke? FDR ran as an economic conservative, then a implemented half hearted polices that fixed only so much. He was a regular liberal really.
He did not run as an economic conservative. He ran with conservative rhetoric, but not with a conservative campaign. His policies were anything but half-hearted, and these policies indisputably saved the US from the Depression.
(1) Attlee did nationalize the Bank of England, which had been owned by stockholders since it was founded in 1694.
(2) Apart from the Bank of England, Attlee nationalized "coal, railways, road transport...civil aviation, cable and wireless, electricity and gas, and steel." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attlee_ministry FDR nationalized *none* of them--about the only experiment in federal ownership of industry was the TVA,, which hardly dominated the power industry.
(3) There is nothing inherently socialist about the welfare state, either. It was pioneered by Bismarck in Germany, and while it was largely introduced to the UK by Attlee, it had the support of the Conservatives and Liberals as well. And of course the welfare state in the US under FDR did not go as far as in most other capitalist democracies: he never pressed for national health insurance, for example.
(4) Yes, there was a lot of public works spending under FDR (though note his eagerness to cut back in 1937, when he prematurely thought the Depression was over). So what? Coolidge signed the bill authorizing what would later be known as Hoover Dam. Did that make him a socialist?
(5) The NIRA was corporatist, not socialist. Big business itself wanted government help to end "cutthroat competition." They later balked at the NIRA but only because of section 7(a) that recognized workers' rights to join organizations "of their own choosing"--but that is hardly socialist either. BTW, FDR was at first wiling even to recognize company unions, as in the 1934 auto industry settlement: https://books.google.com/books?id=WbgxBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA90
(6) BTW, the argument that Attlee's was a "labour but not a socialist government" definitely *has* been made "with a straight face": https://books.google.com/books?id=BbyuAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA85 But it is quite unnecessary to go that far, since as I said Attlee's policies were very different from FDR's on matters like nationalization.
On a President Debs--elected as a Democratic/Populist fusion candidate in 1896-see my post at https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/F0tyya36lWU/A_bhfXuqM8EJ
frlmerrin
Banned
You have not read the OP properly. What you are suggesting was wanted was not what was stated in the OP. FDR meets the requirement even if a few years late.
While FDR may meet the requirement, I'm pretty sure the OP wants a self-proclaimed socialist.
I think we are getting off track. We should move this discussion to PolChat.
In order to get a socialist president, we need a left-wing president who focuses on agriculture and results in a widespread backlash. I think Bryan is your best bet. He's young and he was not actually good at getting things done. He was an agrarian populist, not a city progressive, and will lead to a backlash that kills off progressivism within the Republican Party and reinforces populism within the Democratic Party. By 1910, little action has been accomplished towards reducing the power of trusts and socialism becomes increasingly attractive to workers.
frlmerrin
Banned
This is the bestest bit of balderdash I have read this week. It made me laugh out loud and I had to pass my phone around at the pub so everyone else could read it. We all think it very funny. Just say it out loud and you realise how absurd it is.
Having said that a couple of your points are well made but don't alter the fact FDR was a Socialist.
Please move this discussion to PolChat. We would like a discussion on how a self-proclaimed socialist could be elected, not about how a socialistic liberal was elected.
FDR was a conservative pragmatist, as seen by his immediate cutting of the New Deal once the Depression was "over". LBJ was much of the same. I consider myself a Socialist, and I love FDR, he's the best President, but... an actual Socialist? Nah. Hell, despite his reputation John Nance Garner himself was on the record of supporting some intervention to a certain point for a little while. I imagine most socialist of the time would be pissed that he saved the capitalist system especially after he pushed corporate welfare in the 40's to supply the military.
Wow, that's a crushing, logical retort! "I and my friends around the pub think it's laughable." You might try to actually *answer* my arguments instead.
Since your "friends around the pub" are the font of all wisdom, try reading them this article: https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/bruce-bartlett-conservative-case-for-welfare-state Of course you're still free to believe that Bismarck, Irving Kristol, George Will and Winston Churchill https://theamericanscholar.org/the-forgotten-churchill/#.VkabTpWFOUk in defending the welfare state were all socialists, or that the numerous states that have a predominantly private economy but also social security and other "welfare state" policies (and that rank high in the Heritage Foundation's index of economic freedom) are all socialist (which as I note makes virtually all modern capitalist democracies socialist).
Oh, and by the way there was once an author who argued that "there can be no doubt that some minimum of food, shelter, and clothing, sufficient to preserve health and the capacity to work, can be assured to everybody" as well as arguing that "Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of assistance—where, in short, we deal with genuinely insurable risks—the case for the state's helping to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong." https://books.google.com/books?id=EyNHBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA148 So presumably you regard the author of *The Road to Serfdom* as a socialist...
Anyway, this is all I have to say to you on that matter here. If you want to discuss it, take it to PolChat.
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