Sigma’s Simulacrum of Reality

Finally, after forever, social democracy is barging its way into the US political landscape. Its standard-bearer? Barack Hussein Obama.

The United States of America is the last bastion in the world where social democracy had not had a chance to establish itself. This was because of many reasons, the main being the Red Scare of the Cold War, where the US positioned itself as the anti-thesis of the socialist Europe and USSR. However, I have always maintained that because of this, the US has become irrationally and fanatically afraid of all strands of socialism, including social democracy. A sad side effect of this is that its working class has became one of the most disadvantaged compared to the rest of the developed world.

Barack Obama is at present one of the most social democratic presidential candidate the USA has had in recent history. However, the US media does not use the term ’social democracy’. Like Malaysia, it has an irrational aversion for it. A fear even. So it substitutes it with the term ‘liberal’ instead. I have always been dismissive of US politics, including terms like ‘liberal’, as I feel that it connotes more of social issues than a wider scope of things. I feel there are more important things to debate and argue about than the female reproductive system. Anyway, whatever the term, Obama is really one of the most ‘liberal’ candidate in recent history, despite his platitudes on bi-partisanship and such in his book and his speeches. And that’s totally fine with me.

Unlike Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, it doesn’t seem that Obama is going to go centrist anytime soon. Triangulation is not part of his political strategy. He’s unequivocally for Big Government. That’s right, in capital letters. He’s gonna SOCIALISE the US healthcare (if there’s any funds left, no thanks to the neo-liberalist US financial markets), despite nonsensical howlings from some Americans that it would lead to communism and a suppression of the ‘American spirit’, whatever that means. He’s gonna increase regulation in the financial markets, so that the madness that we are seeing today will never be repeated. And he’s gonna strengthen the unions. Increase taxes for the richest Americans, and cut taxes for the middle-class. He is gonna bring back multilateralism in the US’s dealings with the world.

Barack Obama: A social democrat, and damn proud of it. About time.