Why does my party want socialism?
My family fled Cuba to escape this cruel system
Cuba’s socialist revolution was supposed to work for workers like my grandparents, who lived in Miami during Fulgencio Batista’s dictatorship. In January 1959, two weeks after Fidel Castro seized power, they returned to Cuba to care for my grandmother’s ailing mother. For the next 20 years, they were prisoners in their own country.
As Cuba’s political and economic situation worsened, my grandfather told a friend he wanted to return to the U.S. Someone overheard and reported him to the authorities. For this, the Castro regime threw him in jail. He was later stripped of his job and salary as an accountant and assigned to feed zoo animals. In addition to the emotional distress, this made my family’s financial circumstances even more precarious.
To understand my grandparents’ desperation to flee socialism, imagine leaving everything behind and starting anew at almost 60 years old.
I was born in Miami a little after my family was able to return to America through the “Cuban lottery” system — after President Jimmy Carter allowed travel restrictions to lapse. My parents had a framed photo of themselves with President Ronald Reagan in the living room of our modest duplex. Yet, during the first election I was able to vote, I was a precinct captain for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Four years later, I knocked on doors in New Hampshire for then-Sen. Barack Obama. In 2016, my wife and I drove 14 hours to volunteer for Hillary Clinton. Last June, we marched in support of immigrant families.
Despite my working-class immigrant roots, I’m concerned by the popularity of socialism within my party. On the night of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s victory in New York, I thought her use of the term was a misnomer. Then I began studying the views of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the rapidly growing national organization she belongs to, and was disturbed by what I learned.
Like those of yesteryear, today’s socialists believe that the government should nationalize major industries. They propose eliminating private ownership of companies and they reject profits. In other words, democratic socialism is a lot like the system my family fled, except its proponents promise to be nicer when seizing your business.
When I confronted some progressive friends about this, they initially dismissed my concerns. After sharing some articles with them, the conversation shifted to “they just want us to be more like the Nordic countries” and “they’re not like real socialists!” Both are delusions.
These are adults who willfully join socialist organizations, sound like socialists, and call themselves socialists. As for “Nordic socialism,” as Jostein Skaar of Oslo Economics told me, “I would stress that the Norwegian economic system is capitalistic, heavily influenced by the U.S. and U.K.” This is probably why DSA argues that the Nordic model is not good enough.
The ideological counterparts of America’s democratic socialists are likelier to be found to our south than in northern Europe. For instance, Cuba — where the state controls three-fourths of the economy, limits private-sector activity and employs the majority of workers — is clearly more representative of DSA’s economic vision than Denmark, where 89 percent of wealth is privately owned and seven out of 10 Danes work in the private sector.
As someone who spent years defending Democrats from “socialista” charges, I understand why people roll their eyes when Cuba and Venezuela are mentioned alongside democratic socialism. And I’m under no illusion that increased access to health care and education will turn us into Venezuela. But it’s foolish to believe that democratic socialists — who promise to end capitalism — would be satisfied with Medicare for all, if given the reins of power. This must never happen.
The descendants of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels should have no place in the party of Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy. If socialism represents the future of the Democratic Party, that’s a dystopia no American should want.