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Boo … socialism, socialism!

For Republicans, election time is Halloween season: time to dress up their opponents in terrifying costumes to scare voters over to their side. In order to get elected in 2016, Donald J. Trump, in my opinion, scared enough people by portraying illegal aliens as a threat to our way of life. In 2019, he could win on a double-barreled campaign of fear by combining alarmist warnings of a socialist takeover … in the guise of Democratic win with his battle calls for military action to repel the “invasion” on our southern border. It’s Willie Horton time again.

The term “socialism” used to signify, mostly, just one thing. Not anymore. Over the years, it has lost its singular meaning, except to Republicans. Originally, it referred to authoritarian government-controlled economies and rule; i.e., the communism/socialism of the Soviet Union and China … clearly separating them from democratic capitalism or, more accurately, the mixed economies of countries like the United States, Canada, and many in Western Europe. The term “socialism,” I believe, is as readily definable as putty.

Calling a Democrat a “socialist” is like calling for “ice cream” in a Baskin-Robbins shop. Ice cream comes in many flavors, while some recently developed products are not really ice cream at all but dairy products containing more ice than cream. In like manner, countries tagged as socialist, along with their politicians, run the gamut from Vietnam to Ireland to Singapore. The term “socialism” has become so ambivalent as to be rendered useless … It doesn’t help things that a few Democratic reality TV Congresspersons … to the delight of Republicans … mindlessly apply the easily malleable and readily weaponized term to themselves.

When Republicans call Democrats “socialists,” they want us to think like they do, of socialism as practiced in places like North Korea, Laos and Cuba. I know of no Democrat who supports that brand of socialism …

So, in 2019, get ready to hear the mantra of “socialism” from the Trump bandwagon as often as you heard the incessant incantation of “build the wall” in 2016. When Republicans call Democrats “socialists,” I believe they want voters to conjure up the menacing faces of monsters like Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro and Maduro. They’ll succeed in doing this with Trump’s base, who remain docile as chinchillas. Will others join their ranks? They did in 2016. Who’s to say they won’t again?

It’s ironic that Republicans depict Democrats as dangerous communists. Why? Donald J. Trump, duly elected and sworn-in President of the United States, has done more, in my opinion, to advance the foreign policy goals of Communist Russia than has Vladimir Putin, Russia’s dictatorial prime minister. While Trump paints Democrats as communists, consider his audacious, shameless and ongoing propensity to project his own deepest character flaws on others, such as when he … successfully branded candidate Clinton with the moniker of “Crooked Hillary.” It could work again.

TIM MANNELLO

Williamsport

Submitted via email

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