It’s time to pledge our lives, fortunes and sacred honor to each other — again
By Tara Devlin
The notion that “socialism has never worked” is a flat-Earth-level myth peddled by the same well-heeled grifters who’d sell their own mothers for a tax write-off.
Trump and his Republican enablers like to say their kiss up/kick down policies are “common sense.” In fact, almost everything that actually makes the United States a functional, modern society is rooted in community investment and the common good—a fact that remains stubbornly true no matter how much billionaire mouthpieces say otherwise on their propaganda mills. We’re talking about “democratic socialism”, not the socialism of control.
Republican politicians and commentators deliberately conflate democratic socialism with authoritarian systems like those of Maoist China or the former Soviet Union. They insist any move that expands or strengthens the social safety net is a slippery slope to state tyranny. In reality, American democratic socialists—such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—advocate for a model inspired by the Nordic countries, where capitalism remains robust but regulated in the public interest while government provides universal programs like healthcare, education, and strong worker protections.
As the Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said, “The American Dream is alive in Finland.”
With the middle class now less than 50% of the population and income disparity in America worse than it was in ancient Rome, it’s hard to believe it was once the envy of the post-war world.
Democratic Socialism Works: Lessons from the New Deal
When Franklin Roosevelt took office during the Great Depression, nearly a quarter of the workforce was unemployed. While Businesses and Republicans insisted on doing nothing as Americans starved on the breadlines, FDR got to work attacking the economic collapse with deliberate government policy.
The New Deal consisted of jobs programs, public works, Social Security, gigantic projects to electrify and modernize the infrastructure—all made possible through a progressive tax structure that actually expected the richest to pay their share. FDR’s top marginal tax rate was between 72 and 79%. When Eisenhower took it to over 90%, despite the expected Republican outcries and fearmongering, the economy didn’t collapse—it took off, creating the greatest middle-class in world history.
What Americans now take for granted, from free public education to clean drinking water, exists because there’s a basic understanding that some services are too important to leave to private profiteers. Nobody is getting rich off the local municipal fire department. The libraries, highways, water systems, parks, research labs —the list goes on. These institutions were built with tax dollars for the benefit of everyone, not just so the rich can add another zero on their bank account. The internet itself—created through government-funded research grants—wasn’t bankrolled by Jeff Bezos. Quite the contrary—it made the online bookstore that made him a billionaire possible. In other words, lots of public money goes into making private fortunes possible.
Unchecked Capitalism Equals Exploitation
Capitalism, left unchecked, will always devolve into exploitation of working people and our communities. The Middle Passage, child labor, the Triangle Shirtwaist fire—these are not outliers, but what happens when profit is the only consideration and people are just hosts from which to suck profit and discard. This is the system Republicans are protecting and expanding with “Project 2025” and every policy that protects free rides for the executive class while telling teachers, nurses, and janitors to make do with less. Any limit on corporate power, any safety net, any public benefit—is branded “socialist” with the same venom used to smear abolitionists and suffragettes in their time.
Republicans are on a mission to erase every hard-won victory that put human dignity over private profits. They want to drag us back to the days when the rich ran and ruled, while the rest of us compliantly awaited our rewards in Heaven. In other words, the Republican definition of “freedom” means, the rich are free to exploit you and you’re free to starve.
The Dream of America, Reclaimed
The “American Dream” once meant the chance for everyone to live a decent, middle-class life. Republicans have twisted it into the idea that “you too can be a billionaire and exploit your fellow Americans.” It’s time for those of us who believe in reclaiming that dream from the greedy grip of authoritarianism to declare, without apology, that a nation’s greatness is measured by how deeply it invests in the well-being of its people.
We are citizens of the richest nation on Earth, not hosts for a handful of profiteers to exploit and discard. History, reality, and simple observation all prove that true greatness arises when we build together for the good of all.
Our founders pledged their lives fortunes and sacred honor to each other. That’s the spirit of community that built the country, and it’s the only thing that can save it.
Tara Devlin’s article appeared originally at Political Voices.
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