GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT: SOCIALISM.

• Author: Hightower, Jim
• Position: VOX POPULIST

"Socialism," snarled The Donald at a recent pep rally of Republicans. And the obedient crowd of faithful Trumpistas snarled back in unison:

So-sh'll-izz-ummm!

And there you have the entire intellectual content of the GOP's 2020 re-election strategy under Generalissimo Trump--slap Democrats silly with a scurrilous campaign branding them as Lenin-Trotsky-Stalin reincarnate.

It's not just Trump hissing out the socialist label in a frantic McCarthyesque attempt to make it stick by mindless repetition. Also onboard with this strategy are Mike Pence, Cabinet officials, Republican lawmakers, rightwing pundits, and of course the extremist choreographers of Fox News.

Their incessant babbling has already turned clownish, with many babblers bumbling over their own ignorance. Texas Senator John Cornyn, for example, compared Democrats who support ideas like Medicare for All to Mussolini. Apparently, Cornyn is unaware that the brutish Italian dictator was no socialist, but a fascist! Mussolini's ideology of ultranationalism, promotion of masculine authoritarianism, domination of society by big business and the wealthy, and suppression of democratic rights is the opposite of the Democratic agenda. Indeed, it describes the policies of--guess who?--Trump and his acolytes, including Cornyn!

The real problem for the GOP, however, is not merely that squawking like Chicken Little about diabolical socialism makes them sound like old fuddyduddies, but that the so-called socialism they're attacking is enormously popular with the workaday majority of Americans.

Government-backed health care for all? Sure, why should CEOs and Congress critters be the only ones to get this? Affordable higher education and housing initiatives? Of course, for that helps all of America. A wealth tax on corporate giants and the super-rich? Long overdue that they stop dodging the cost of the common good. Restore the rights of labor and restrain the rise of monopolies? Yes!

Far from socialism, this is democratic populism, reversing decades of government policies that take from the many to give to the wealthy few. It's an honest, popular rebellion against the corporate plutocracy that seeks to usurp America's democracy, promoted by Trump and Cornyn. Which side are you on?

And which side are some of our Democratic leaders on? Unfortunately, an exotic flu epidemic has broken out in Washington, D.C. Dubbed the "Canadian Hot Sauce Flu," it afflicts a particular group of Democratic office...