Andrew Gillum, who was the mayor of Tallahassee from 2014 to 2018 and the Democratic nominee for Florida governor in 2018, is rather upset that the GOP is accurately describing so many Democrats
‘Socialism’ is a GOP smear. Democrats have to fight back.
A few days after I became the Democratic nominee for governor of Florida, the Republican nominee, Ron DeSantis, visited the historically Cuban neighborhood of Little Havana in Miami and read aloud, in Spanish, from a note card: “El socialismo serÃa un desastre para la Florida.â€
Attack ads and targeted mailers soon followed. President Trump visited Florida three times to amplify the attacks, and his diatribes about the dangers of socialism were broadcast to every home in the state.
The messages used in my race for governor will again dominate the airwaves here and elsewhere in 2020.
It’s time to face a hard truth: We, as Democrats, have allowed it to happen. We have responded to this unfair attack with well-intended, but scattershot, defenses.
Perhaps more than anywhere else in the country, the traumatizing histories of authoritarian socialist regimes are active memories for voters in Florida. For the thousands of Floridians who come from Cuba, Venezuela or Nicaragua, the word “socialism†is rife with deep pain and anger. Republicans exploit this experience, preying on the fears of immigrants and their families.
If the shoe fits, wear it
Democrats need to make a strong case, and soon, that we are fighting for economic freedom and opportunity — and it is Republican ideas that are diminishing freedom and opportunity for millions.
Now, if you aren’t laughing at that one, I don’t know what will hit your funny bone. This is the party of healthcare run by the Central Government. This is the party that wants to dictate how companies operate and force them to comply with Modern Socialist dictates. They want to control your individual lives via a Green New Deal/climate change policies. They want full governmental control of the energy sector and the economy. They want to take from the producers and give to the moochers. They want government in charge of everything. Excluding abortion, of course. They want no restrictions or rules on that at all.
They want freedom to worship government, and opportunity for them only comes from Government telling others how to operate.
Bernie Sanders is an avowed Socialist. Many of the up and coming Democrats, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are members of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Realistically, they aren’t so much Socialists, per Political Theory 101, as Progressives, otherwise known as Nice Fascists. In true Socialism, the government mostly stays out of our private lives, and voting is very, very open with few restrictions. Democrats want to control our lives, and do not respect the outcomes of votes when they lose. Hence why I call it Modern Socialism, because too few understand what Progressivism is.
