Welcome to From Insults To Respect. Recently, Donald Trump has been throwing insults at those seeking political office under a banner of either “Democratic Socialists” or “Progressives.” He has taken to calling them “communists,” which is not exactly designed to be a compliment. Most Americans, including me, are not at all friendly to the communist ideology.
Upon hearing this name-calling, initially, I felt confident the fact checkers of our national press will adequately set the record straight. However, the fact checkers I’ve lately seen dealing with this, typically just note that communist ideology is different than either democratic socialism or an American progressive point of view. Given that there are many in our country that are vague about these differences, I’m 
thinking that a fuller explanation is called for.
First, please keep in mind those seeking political office and being called communists are doing so under a U.S. Constitution that guarantees to all of its citizens freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of the press. These freedoms run completely at odds with communism and there is no indication those running wish to violate the constitution.
Our U.S. political system permits groups of people to form different political parties. The three big ones in recent years have been Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. Communism only permits one party–Communism. Those being thrown insults by Trump have been running as Democrats or independents, though they could, if they want, run as communist. They are not.
When discussing this issue, it’s important to note that communism is a political and economic system without private property or a profit-based economy. Instead it has public ownership and communal control of the means of production (e.g., mines, mills, and factories) and the natural resources of a society. Are the democratic socialists or progressives seeking this?
To answer this question, let’s look at a specific example of someone viewed both as a progressive and social democrat. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, despite describing himself in this way, recently ran for mayor having won the primaries in the race to be supported by the Democratic Party. He is, in fact, a member of the Democratic Party. His stated policies aim at making the city more affordable and equitable. He was elected. With this in mind, let’s take a look to see if his actions as mayor are communistic.
First, I notice that Mamdani has been willing to speak freely to a wide range of media regarding his views, including being extensively interviewed by Fox News, clearly a media outlet that is not at all supportive of his political views. As I watch on, I haven’t seen any indication he has been unsupportive of free speech or freedom of religion. 
As far as how capitalistic enterprises in the city are operating, we see private businesses that range from a news stand in the city’s subway, to Macy’s department stores, to the New York Stock Exchange. There is absolutely no indication, as far as I can see, that Mamdani is trying to drive the vast majority of private businesses out of business.
To see if he can lower food prices for New Yorkers, which is a clear goal of the majority of his citizens, he has proposed to open one socialist supermarket in each borough. 
There is a concern that a few nearby grocery stores might be at risk of going out of business if they can’t sell their goods at prices that are competitive with the socialist stores. There are efforts underway to find a way to deal humanely with this while still learning if a socialist store could provide meaningful cost savings to New Yorkers.
In an effort to bring down the cost of apartment rentals, Mamdani is trying a freezing-the-rent approach. Along with this, he is seeking to build more apartment buildings with the hope that with more availability of apartments, this will lead to lower rents as competition to find an apartment in the city is eased.
There are certainly concerns being expressed about this by people who are currently owners of apartment buildings. They argue if their income on their rental properties are reduced, they will be unable to keep them in good repair. We’ll have to see how this all works out. But, for now, the majority of New York City citizens, voting democratically, expressed wanting to give the Mamdani approach a try.
Mamdani, also wants to see if he can get free public bus services for the city. This may sound communistic, but in Miami, for years, there has been an elevated train that circles the downtown area at no cost to riders. Keep in mind that Miami has a conservative Republican Governor, and he hasn’t interfered with this cost saving and convenient measure.
The people want affordable communities, and I agree that with such efforts comes controversy. Communist approaches also come with controversy. In fact, no system of government has yet eliminated this, but by adding to the controversy calling democratic socialism or progressivism incorrectly communism isn’t going to add meaningfully to these debates.
Now, an interesting aspect of the discussions regarding democratic socialism, is that there is an organization that calls itself the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). This group says it is against the police, prisons and the military. I don’t know a single politician who is backing such calls. Nevertheless, this is interesting in that there is no communist country that eliminated its police, prisons or military, so it makes no sense to throw this into a set of reasons why democratic socialists and progressives are bad.
Nevertheless, let’s return to our Mamdani example. In New York City there exists the largest metropolitan police force and prison system in the country. There is absolutely no effort by Mamdani to eliminate them, and upon his election, he kept the same police commissioner that had been the commissioner before his election..
The DSA also says they are for open borders. Because NYC does not share a border with Mexico, Mamdani is not asked about his views on this. 
Therefore, let’s turn to Bernie Sanders, also viewed as a democratic socialist and progressive, and a supporter of Mamdani who has been asked his views on this because he is a US Senator that votes on border control funding. He has repeatedly said he is against open borders.
Now some members of the DSA say they are against capitalism which might lead to some concluding that means they are for communism. However, recently a woman running for the U.S. House of Representatives, when questioned about this on Firing Line explained that capitalism as a system is bad because over and over some things come about that are bad. For example, early under our form of government, most working class folks couldn’t afford to send their kids to school. In the mid-1800s, American citizens complained enough about this that a democratic socialism solution came to the rescue with the creation of public schools.
Early in the 1900s, capitalism was creating more and more monopolies. This was dramatically reducing competition and prices were rising. Again, democratic socialism had to come to the rescue with anti-monopoly laws that were democratically approved.
Toward the middle of that century more and more senior citizens were experiencing horrible economic conditions. Again, democratic socialism had to come to the rescue by creating Social Security.
Unemployment insurance, disability programs, the economic bailouts that occurred during the 
1929 Great Depression; the bond market crash of 2002; and the Covid financial crisis of 2o22 are further examples that point to evidence that without a process of democratic socialism, which has been part of the American economic system for 200 years, capitalism is bad.
As this candidate for Congress on Firing Line went about explaining all of this, it seemed to me she wasn’t really saying capitalism is completely bad; it is just bad without democratic socialism being available when aspects of capitalism are producing unacceptable results. That captures my view as well.
One of the major approaches to criticizing people running for political office is to look back in time to identify something they said years ago that is now viewed negatively to their potential supporters. As I think about comments I have said off the cuff in the past, many of them, upon reflection, came to be viewed by me as faulty, and I ended up modifying my position. To now claim my past comments somehow is actually what I now believe strikes me as unfair.
So, in conclusion, when I heard Trump referring to folks as communists because they have expressed friendliness toward a democratic socialist or progressive approach, I wanted to present the main reasons I felt a need to clarify. I’m hoping my readers have found this helpful.
My Best
Jeff
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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.
