If you had stood up ten years ago and said that an entire Presidential election could be on the topic of capitalism versus socialism....you would have gotten laughed out of the room. But here we are in the early part of 2019, and it appears that the entire strategy of President Trump....is to get the Democratic Party attached to the socialism agenda, and have a campaign just on this.
Part of this can go to the Bernie Sanders 2016 campaign, where he talked a good bit on socialist ideals. Part of this can go toward 'ideals' generated and talked about via CNN and MSNBC. And part of this revolves around an 'unfairness' angle that has lingered in the public view.
You can imagine rural folks sitting around the TV in the spring of 2020....asking themselves what all this socialism chatter is about, and having their nephew educate them by explaining the 'cow-theory': you have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. You have to manage all the cows. Then the government gives you as much milk as you need.
Grandma is impressed by this talk by her nephew, but Grandpa asks....what about capitalism? Junior talks about this: you have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
Well....Grandpa gushes at this point....that makes perfect sense.
But then Junior gets onto bureaucraticism: you have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. After that it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and dumping the milk down the drain. Then the government requires you to fill out paperwork accounting for the missing cows.
Grandpa agrees....that's typically how the US government works. But hold on....Junior isn't finished yet.
Then Junior gets onto Facism: here, you have two cows. The government takes both, then the government hires you to take care of them, and finally, the government sells you the milk at the price which fluctuates each week for no apparent reason.
All of this unsettles both Grandma and Grandpa. They look over at Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, and Greece. All use socialism and all have a decaying landscape.
Across the US, this worry....an actual image of starving people in Venezuela....identifying the Democrats to something that they really can't talk to, or push to the side. It will eventually trigger a negative reaction. The 2020 election? You could see some massive Electoral College swing with over 350 votes for Trump and 'capitalism'. At the end of that election, a number of Democrats will stand up and ask....where the hell did this conversation start from, and then everyone will look at Bernie and the 2016 election. Blame will be dumped there.
