‘Yes, I’m Running as a Socialist.’

The New York Times reports:

Rather than shy away from being called a socialist, a word conservatives have long wielded as a slur, candidates like Mr. Bynum are embracing the label. He is among dozens of D.S.A. [Democratic Socialists of America]members running in this fall’s midterms for offices across the country at nearly every level...

Supporters, many of them millennials, say they are drawn by D.S.A.’s promise to combat income inequality, which they believe is tainting every facet of American life, from the criminal justice system to medical care to politics. They argue that capitalism has let them down, saddling them with student debt, high rent and uncertain job prospects. And they have been frustrated by the Democratic Party, which they say has lost touch with working people...

I called this immediately after the November 2016 election.

I wrote on November 10, 2016:

 There will be opposition to Trump but it will be coming from the left, not the Trump right.

The left is all about expanding the state. Thus, it will be very difficult to reach out to these people and present state shrinking anti-Trump ideas. They are a perfect target for the socialists...

 The socialists are going to experience a boom in followers under Trump.

The kids see Trump as an example of capitalism and thus they turn to an alternative to the buffon in chief.

Trump has co-opted a large segment of the liberty movement.

As I wrote in 2016:

Crony capitalism is bad but trade wars, tarriffs and other protectionist policies are worse. This, though, is the direction Trump appears to want to move in on trade. Yet, in the comments, I see support for Trump's barbaric trade thinking. No doubt there will be more such support for Trump in the comments to this post, though, Trump is nowhere near a small government advocate. He may move in a small government direction on an issue here or there but he will be mostly about expanding the state. As I say, few from the right are going to be concerned about this, their man is in power.

Bottom line: Advancing the libertarian cause just got much more difficult with the Trump victory.

Trump is not a friend of liberty, He needs to be attacked and attacked aggressively whenever he moves in a statist direction so that the kids can become aware of a libertarian alternative.

  -Robert Wenzel