Gustavo Contreras/Staff Writer
With the ethnic diversity that makes up Florida’s population, a candidate associating themselves with socialism would cost their party votes. Principally, both Latino and non-Hispanic American voters alike are not in good taste with anything deemed socialist—regardless of policy.
Americans are strongly opposed to socialism, and this hatred of the philosophy is most seen in our state. 2016 and 2020’s Democratic primaries have shown that Democrats in Miami stay unwilling to elect a democratic socialist. The automatic distaste that is triggered by the association with socialism is especially clear through surveys from Hispanic voters; 70% of Florida’s Hispanic population would not vote for a self-proclaimed socialist, according to surveys.
For many Americans, the concept of socialism is wrongly akin to communism, therefore damaging political campaigns. Calling any left-wing candidate a socialist is a political strategy used to antagonize the personality and policies of a candidate. It works because socialism is not popular with swing voters or moderates alike.
In Florida, this tactic is often used to create public aporia, effectively lowering candidates’ votes through vague confusion. Calling someone a socialist creates doubt and uncertainty towards that candidate in certain communities.
The tactic was used in 2018 when Florida’s previous governor Rick Scott incorrectly called Senator Bill Nelson a socialist throughout the midterm elections. That same year in Miami, local congresswoman Donna Shalala was also equivocally branded a socialist by a political opponent. These attacks are not based on criticizing policies that would deem the person a socialist, but are instead bent on damaging the candidate’s face, personality and popularity.
More recently, a CNBC article advised Democrats against Senator Elizabeth Warren’s possible nomination as Vice President, her progressiveness being a supposed deterrent for moderate voters. One such voter, Florida business owner John Morgan, explained that Warren began to lose her campaign when she started associating with socialism and Bernie Sanders—despite the fact that Warren has separated her beliefs from Sanders’ and called herself capitalist.
But how popular are the socialist policies to moderates? Regardless, it seems hypocritical to pejoratively call a candidate a socialist and then conform to their policies, be it universal healthcare, affordable education or improved wages.
In 2015, Senator Sanders proposed a bill that federally increased the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
Sanders isn’t exactly popular in Florida. Just this year, Shalala herself called the possibility of making Sanders the democtatic nominee “political suicide.” And yet, Floridians have supported raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. The policy has since been adopted by moderates like Shalala and Biden, and will even be on November’s ballot.
In 2016, the New York Post headlined an article about how free college tuition is the gateway to socialism. But just this year, self-proclaimed “centrist” Biden adopted Sanders’ “College For All” proposal before Florida’s primary, only to go on to win Miami’s democratic votes.
And Biden is a candidate who has definitely not been branded as a socialist. The moderate nominee has received little to no criticism for advocating socialist-backed policies, which goes to further question whether our socialist cries of wolf are made to damage the popularity of the policy or the candidate.
As much criticism as there is towards socialism—especially in Florida—there seems to be no local repercussion towards the adoption of socialist policies. I wouldn’t be surprised if something as left-wing as a universal basic income bill made its way to the polls in a few years through a moderate.
Featured image by Erik Cooper on Flickr.
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