Please tell us what these "good ideas" you think AOC has. As a reminder, AOC as a Congressional freshmen has been put on two powerful committees. The media coverage of her is extensive. AOC is an admitted Socialist. Even if Bernie Sanders and AOC are smart in their own way and are likable, Socialism is a failed economic system as has been shown throughout history. By failed, I mean for the people not at the top. The general population's standard of living goes down and anarchy is usually not too far behind. Incentive to work and produce in a Socialistic system is just not there. Interestingly. there will be a few people at the top with almost all the national wealth while everyone else has almost nothing. Talk about a polarized wealth distribution curve. Let's give a wave towards multibillionaires Putin and Soros. Hell, while we are at it, let's give a nod to Bernie Sanders with his four houses. One of the premises of Socialism is Government by the people, of the people, and for the people is unsound. In other words, part of Socialistic belief is the people are given their rights by the Government. By extension people are basically too stupid to make their own decisions. They need the Governemt to run their lives for them. When people vote Socialists into office, the Socialists primary point is made and the Government should indeed be making the decisions on how these people should live their lives.
It's not socialism that is bad, it's pure capitalism that's bad. You should tell Norway Denmark and Sweden how bad socialism is. They have the highest standards of living in the world. Both extremes are bad. But right now the wealth/income inequity in the US is bad and getting worse. That need adjusting. The top 1% are doing great.....everyone else, not so much.
According to the CIA World Factbook at CIA.gov, Socialist or Labor Parties are currently the political majority in Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. These countries have commonalities of high world ranking in spending for education and healthcare. They also have very high taxation rates. Also interesting to note is their immigration laws are tougher than the United States. However, these countries did recently allow refugees from Syria, Afganistan, and South America. These countries have low population growth rates. Their Central bank policies are accommodative at 0% or negative interest rates. Their debt to GDP ratio is much more favorable when compared to the United States and many other global powers. The people in these countries are also more homogeneous in culture and religion. I have interacted with people from these countries in Seattle at a big band event. I found them to have a rich culture and a strong sense of tradition. They also seemed to be avid participants at this event by quite a large representation of generations. Although I don't know the nuances or even basic details of what life is like in those countries, it does seem like their political system is workng reasonably well for them. Therefore, it seems the keys to success of a political and economic system is the integrity of the people, Constitutional protections against bad actors from being able to cause irreparable harm to the system, and a ability to easily oust poor performers. Pure capitalism and truly free markets are the best systems for innovation and efficiently allocating capital to the most productive. This requires integrity of the participants. It used to be when those who displayed significant character weakness would be effectively exiled because word would get around and other people would not do business with them. With the diluting effects of many different cultures and population growth as well as both parents working here in the US, children were not brought up properly. There was less sense of community, culture, or tradition. As these children grew up and entered the workforce as hourly workers, managers, and even some executives, there was less of a sense of social contract with them. Ethical behavior was less likely to be top of mind with them. This caused exploitive behavior that may have resulted in tangible, short term gains at the cost of intangible long term worker resentment. In addition, some business practices have actually been abusive to customers. This has caused people to contemplate other systems that had the outward appearance of being more fair. We need politicians who are above board and legislate in such a way that bad actors cannot cause wide spread disfunction. Whether it is Capitalism or Socialism, we need good people to represent us. The whiney Radical Leftists that appear in control of the Democratic Party are not good representatives for any political system. They use unethical techniques to suppress dissent such as false accusations, intimidation tactics, and dishonesty. The Radical Left in the United States use their crys of racism, sexism, and homophobia as a reason for their base to vote them into power. There is no value add to their platform. They have no real economic or political reforms that address modern day issues. Whenever I have pressed a Radical Leftist with the question, "What do the Democrats offer?", I never have gotten a reasonable response. NEVER. Orangeman bad is not a reasonable response. Elevating disfunctional behavior is not a sound platform either. So I ask you the question, Futurecurrents, why should we vote for Democrats in the 2020 elections? What does the Democratic Party offer their constituents and how do they plan on delivering on their promises?
They'll tax the rich more and transfer that wealth to the lower classes and address the huge problem of climate change and supply medicare for all. And hopefully do some gun control. And continue to support women's right to choose. etc. Maybe cut some of the absurd 25% of our taxes that go "defense". All the good things that the Republicants cant.
Not true. Demoncraps are corporate thieves. There's not going to be any "transfer of wealth" to the "lower classes." They'll just create some new phony companies like Solyndra and pay even more to the insurance companies.