Some “funny” facts about the US socialist dream

There are a couple of things I have come across that kind of made me smile. One might think of them as little contradictions or pieces of data that makes me think… hmmm. And, then it makes me think of a story. Here is one about the US socialist movement.

As we know, people in the US on the far left have two primary enemies. One is the rich white billionaires like Mitch McConnell, Jeff Bezos and Donald Trump. They are essentially the archetypes of the oppressor: the rich, white, male, heteronormative, colonizer etc etc.

The other group they hate are the poor white racist people who fly a Trump flag on their truck and probably say racist things to their buddies as they sit around a dirty racist bar somewhere in southern Ohio, drinking any beer but Bud Light and telling sad stories of the old days when being white was basically all you needed for success. Now having squandered all their inherited slave plantation money, they just can’t seem to get ahead.

The oppressors are somewhat worse because they run everything with their money and dirty politics and control of Fox News, the nerve center for all right-wing mind control. The poor white people, while still horrible and disgusting, are just duped by these billionaire masterminds because … well, those country people just aren’t too bright, ya know?

These good socialist people are young, college educated, a mix of male and female and other genders, and diverse but still mostly white as well. They live in cities and largely have office jobs or did before they got to work from home. They read the usual reputable news sources, the New York Times, CNN, The Nation, Huff Po, WaPo etc and probably some other more esoteric social justice magazines called The Socialist Observer or something. They go on YouTube and the San-Francisco-designed algorithm provides them a nice safe space to reenforce their beliefs, free of misinformation and offensive content. They have to consult so many sources, these and many others sent by friends, to cross check the facts and make sure they all hold together in a single coherent WorldView. They are, after all, educated; masters of research and critical thinking.

Then of course there are the victims, the oppressed: the poor, the people of color, women (only barely these days), transgender people and all the LGBTQ2S++ folk.

Now of course socialists have that usual socialist dream and that is primarily the Great Wealth Transfer. Taking the money away from Mitch McConnell, the Koch Brothers and the other exploiters and spreading it out evenly among the poor, the true wealth creators. And of course they get to keep some too; a finders fee I guess.

I’m sure in their socialist daydreams they have this image of Elon Musk crying as he delivers a big dump trump full of money to the socialists, who then drive their electric cars around South Side Chicago, Trenton and East LA throwing the money out the window where half-starved, shoeless children cheer, scoop it up and take it back home, to begin planning a better, more hopeful life.

But here is the first funny fact. Poor people mostly aren’t black. They are not any of your favorite victim groups. 46% of poor people in the US are white people, most of them living in rural or suburban areas. In other words; your other enemy. What have we done? If the money goes to all the poor people, you’re going to have to drive that electric car way out in the country where you are at risk of running out of charge. And then you are going to have to walk into that smelly racist bar and hand a bunch of money to some bearded, beer-bellied oaf named Buford, wearing greasy overalls and a big red MAGA hat.

So, your socialist dream has become a socialist nightmare. Mostly you are just turning billionaires into millionaires while funding beer and beef jerky companies, doubling the number of guns in America and ensuring the next Alt-right rally will have an A-list country singer. AAAAAARRRRRRRRR!!!

So, you see we have arrived at a kind of impasse. How can we be socialists if we hate both the rich AND most of the poor? All the news sources told you that the poverty rate among black people was twice as high as white people. They all said that. I guess what they didn’t say and you didn’t quite consider is that there are nearly 5X as many white people. So, hmmm, yeah, the 46% checks out.

It seems there is only one way around this. We need a more targeted approach. Slavery reparations will work. Of course there is still a problem. This isn’t going to help poor hispanics, or at least most of them, nor our allies, the Asians, native Americans and Pacific Islanders.? You consider whether or not they can simply identify… No that won’t work because white people would try it too. Maybe each group has their own reparations plan? But how do we balance?… hmmm, complicated. Well, maybe we can’t solve every problem all at once. And of course there is another pressing problem. What do we get out of this? Most of us aren’t black. What could mostly white, young college educated people get in return for organizing this revolution. We are suffering too under this capitalist system that doesn’t pay us enough to pay off our college debt. Let’s think what else could we possibly go for? What could we ask for from uncle Joe? Hmmm.