What and Who is A Democratic Socialist?

The word Socialist has been bandied about ever since Barack Hussein Obama ascended to the Office of President. Many people have claimed that Obama is a Socialist - which many Democrats (and even Obama himself) get quite upset when they deny it. But, is there a legitimate case for that claim?

There really is an organized group in the United States that is called the Democratic Socialists of America and many of our politicians belong to that group. The DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) is the principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International (the world-wide Socialist organization). Some of the prominent politicians (mostly all Democrats) who belong to the DSA (now sometimes called the Progressive Caucus) includes, Sen. Bernie Sanders (an avowed Socialist), Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, Rep. John Conyers, Rep. Alan Grayson, Rep. Charlie Rangel, Rep. Henry Waxman etc. In fact, a total of approx. 70 members of Congress are members of the DSA, including most all the members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

What do Democratic Socialists believe in? According to their website, they believe in a humane international social order based on democratic planning and market mechanisms to achieve equitable distribution of resources; meaningful work; a healthy environment; sustained growth; gender and social equality; and non-oppressive relationships. Who could be against some of those nice sounding goals? Well, not everything that sounds good on paper can actually work out well in actual practice, as history seems to have shown us.

If you read between the lines, you can see many of the policies espoused by Obama and the Democrats are quite similar to the policies espoused by the DSA. They mention democratic planning (a/k/a central planning); market mechanisms (government run agencies like Obamacare); distribution of resources (also known as income redistribution from the rich to the poor); healthy environment (pushing policies about stemming global warming (a/k/a climate change). Obama and his Administration have echoed many of these policies in how they approach the handling of our government.

The DSA has strong support among the labor unions in the USA, as many of the labor leaders are avowed Socialists. Pres. Obama is a strong supporter of labor unions and has pushed for advantages to benefit the labor unions. For example, he has introduced the EFCA (Employee Free Choice Act) which would make it easier for labor unions to attempt to organize companies by doing away with secret ballot elections when the unions try to organize workers at various companies, and he has granted them special waivers for some of his most controversial policies (like in Obamacare).

Most of the influential people in Obama’s life have been people associated with Marxist/Socialist policies and ideas. His mentor during his teens in Hawaii, Frank Marshall Davis, was an avowed Marxist/Socialist; the leftist professors in college he associated with; his political benefactor who was instrumental in getting him started in politics, Bill Ayers, an admitted terrorist and Socialist; his pastor and black liberation preacher, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is a Socialist with racist ideals. In addition, in both his presidential campaigns, the DSA worked for and supported his candidacy. An expression my mother told me as to why people do certain things went like this, “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”, this sort of explains how Obama acts and speaks, gleaned from his past associations.

So it is, in my estimation, that it is a safe bet to say that our President, Barack Hussein Obama, is a Socialist, whether he or the Democrats want to admit it or not.

Conservative commentary by Chuck Lehmann