Is Obama a Socialist? A Socialist Weighs in
According to a Democracy Corps poll released over the summer, a majority of likely voters believe that the word “socialist” is a fair way to describe President Obama. The word is often used by the president’s harshest critics, and not just those on the fringe: In March, Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele complained that the president was pushing a “radical socialist health care ‘reform’ experiment.” You can buy an “Obama is a socialist” bumper sticker.
So what does an actual socialist think about the idea that Mr. Obama deserves the label?
Not much.
Billy Wharton, the 41-year-old co-chair of the Socialist Party USA, said in an interview that the president’s agenda is nothing like the vision that his group espouses for the country.
Start with employment: As the government announced today, the unemployment rate currently stands at 9.6 percent. Under socialism, he said, everyone has a right to a job - which means that the unemployment rate would, essentially, be zero. If the private sector didn’t provide enough jobs, Wharton said, a socialist government would create jobs to fill the gap.
Wharton pointed to the bank bailout - passed under President Bush but supported by President Obama - as an example of where socialist and Obama agendas differ. “We would have used that money to create a national jobs system,” he said, calling for a “system of cooperatives that would be run by workers themselves.”