As we watch the GOP squabble over whether it wants yet another Speaker of the House from California, it’s worth taking a moment to remember Norman Thomas, six-time Socialist Party candidate for president (from 1928 through 1948).
Thomas is supposed to have said that by 1948, there was no longer any need for his party to run a candidate, since between them, the Democratic and Republican parties had already adopted the position of his party on every major issue.
Apocryphal? Perhaps. Premature? Probably.
What were the positions that Thomas was talking about? And have they actually been adopted by the parties, or more importantly, implemented by the government? You can find a list here.
Socialists aren’t batting 1.000, but they’ve left Ty Cob (.366 lifetime average) eating their dust.
But it’s easy to get lost in the details. In a 1968 interview with Studs Terkel, Thomas noted that the entire Socialist Party platform could be summarized in a single ideal, which he expressed as ‘from every man according to his ability, to each man according to his need’
We know that Democrats are on board with that ideal. (Although they might substitute ‘group’ for ‘man’.)
But how many current Republican office holders would publicly repudiate this as a legitimate guiding principle for American politics? How many would openly call for the elimination — not just the tweaking — of government programs, at all levels, that implement it?
Isn’t from every man according to his ability the basis behind every progressive or flat rate tax?
Isn’t to each man according to his need the basis behind public schools, Social Security, SNAP, CHIP, LIHEAP, Section 8, and every other welfare program?
Apart from Ron Paul and John Valera — who are no longer in office — are there any Republicans who would call for an end to wealth redistribution programs, and the taxes that are used to fund them?
There aren’t. Whether Thomas actually said it or not, both major parties have adopted — and not just grudgingly, but enthusiastically — his central socialist ideal as the basis for their individual policy initiatives.
What we’re watching now on live television is like the punchline to the old joke: The GOP has established what it is — one of two modern wings of the old Socialist Party — and now it’s just haggling over the details.
