The U.S. House of Congress has recently passed a resolution in a 285–98 vote called ‘Denouncing the Horrors of Socialism‘, aiming to formally establish socialist policies as “fundamentally incompatible with America’s founding principles,” and socialism as a failed ideology that has no place in the United States. Though the political right in the US has frequently condemned socialism, this resolution has a notable symbolic weight in the context of openly democratic socialist Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s victory.
I could write an entirely separate article solely about the title of this resolution. ‘Denouncing the Horrors of Socialism’ sounds like something straight out of a piece of Cold War propaganda. Most impactful (and worrying) is the dramatic word choice that adds an air of significance and alarm to this formal vilification of socialist ideology, framed as something unimaginably frightening and evil that must be condemned before it can take root. By taking a most superficial and violently bastardised version of ‘socialism’ (which is often used interchangeably with ‘communism,’ ‘Marxism,’ and ‘leftism’ with no consideration of their distinctions) in history, this resolution is trying to instil fear about its mischaracterised opposing set of political ideas.
The timing isn’t coincidental. Despite both the Democrats and Republicans (as well as up to 26 billionaires) predominantly supporting Cuomo’s campaign, Mamdani had won the New York mayoral race, showing that his openly democratic socialist policy ideas have a broader and stronger appeal than might’ve been thought. In response to this potential ideological threat to Trump’s radical right-wing populism and the failing centrist-liberal flux of the Democrats, government representatives are building on their prior basis of anti-socialist rhetoric and solidifying it with the legitimacy of a House-passed resolution.
It’s important to note this is not a purely right-wing issue; both Democrats and Republicans voted to pass this resolution drafted by Republican Congresswoman Maria Salazar. There is a government-wide misconception about the ‘threat of socialism’ wherein the Right has taken the term to replace the role of ‘communism’ in its nationalist narratives, and the moderate Left continually ignores the possibility that it could be more likely to succeed if it embraced socialism’s more ‘extreme’ structural, equality-focused ideas.
In condemning socialist ideology, the resolution references a list of authoritarian leaders, including Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Kim Jong Un. While socialism may not be without faults, it is a fundamental error to automatically associate socialism with authoritarianism when its core motive is a community-based goal of distributional equality. But perhaps the US Representatives’ concerns about these threats would hold more merit if they were also extremely critical of Donald Trump’s unconstitutional behaviours as President, such as calling himself the “King of America.”
Disseminated right-wing rhetoric has warped and misdirected people’s political concerns. We need to remind ourselves that the common political threat that everyone should be ‘denouncing’ is authoritarianism, regardless of the ideology it builds itself around, not socialism.
Photo by Darren Halstead on Unsplash
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Breaking Down ‘H.Con.Res.58 – Denouncing the Horrors of Socialism’
The U.S. House of Congress has recently passed a resolution in a 285–98 vote called ‘Denouncing the Horrors of Socialism‘, aiming to formally establish socialist policies as “fundamentally incompatible with America’s founding principles,” and socialism as a failed ideology that has no place in the United States. Though the political right in the US has frequently condemned socialism, this resolution has a notable symbolic weight in the context of openly democratic socialist Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s victory.
I could write an entirely separate article solely about the title of this resolution. ‘Denouncing the Horrors of Socialism’ sounds like something straight out of a piece of Cold War propaganda. Most impactful (and worrying) is the dramatic word choice that adds an air of significance and alarm to this formal vilification of socialist ideology, framed as something unimaginably frightening and evil that must be condemned before it can take root. By taking a most superficial and violently bastardised version of ‘socialism’ (which is often used interchangeably with ‘communism,’ ‘Marxism,’ and ‘leftism’ with no consideration of their distinctions) in history, this resolution is trying to instil fear about its mischaracterised opposing set of political ideas.
The timing isn’t coincidental. Despite both the Democrats and Republicans (as well as up to 26 billionaires) predominantly supporting Cuomo’s campaign, Mamdani had won the New York mayoral race, showing that his openly democratic socialist policy ideas have a broader and stronger appeal than might’ve been thought. In response to this potential ideological threat to Trump’s radical right-wing populism and the failing centrist-liberal flux of the Democrats, government representatives are building on their prior basis of anti-socialist rhetoric and solidifying it with the legitimacy of a House-passed resolution.
It’s important to note this is not a purely right-wing issue; both Democrats and Republicans voted to pass this resolution drafted by Republican Congresswoman Maria Salazar. There is a government-wide misconception about the ‘threat of socialism’ wherein the Right has taken the term to replace the role of ‘communism’ in its nationalist narratives, and the moderate Left continually ignores the possibility that it could be more likely to succeed if it embraced socialism’s more ‘extreme’ structural, equality-focused ideas.
In condemning socialist ideology, the resolution references a list of authoritarian leaders, including Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Kim Jong Un. While socialism may not be without faults, it is a fundamental error to automatically associate socialism with authoritarianism when its core motive is a community-based goal of distributional equality. But perhaps the US Representatives’ concerns about these threats would hold more merit if they were also extremely critical of Donald Trump’s unconstitutional behaviours as President, such as calling himself the “King of America.”
Disseminated right-wing rhetoric has warped and misdirected people’s political concerns. We need to remind ourselves that the common political threat that everyone should be ‘denouncing’ is authoritarianism, regardless of the ideology it builds itself around, not socialism.
Photo by Darren Halstead on Unsplash
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