PAINFUL conversation outside the coffee shop today.

“Socialism” as a political philosophy holds governments should be judged not by ideology but according to how their policies affect the people they are responsible for serving.

While you can argue that Democratic candidates, in focusing on COVID, are “socialist” in their analysis of the Trump Administration, they have not addressed the core issue. The universal criteria for political rhetoric is “who is the speaker trying to love?” Any rhetoric that starts with “I” is immediately discounted, for the candidate can not love every voter. All a candidate can do is promise that government will be held accountable to the people. That requires measuring what is happening, and sharing that information with the public. This requirement transcends COVID and encompasses every aspect of Executive Branch operation. Absolute and full transparency is the minimum, and a standard that the current Administration has failed at every turn.

The seduction of the conservative agenda is based upon a false interpretation of the American Golden Age that followed WWII. The narrative is false because the singular factor that propelled American wealth was the destruction of every other industrialized economy during WWII. That circumstance cannot and will not ever recur. Policies must be evaluated, therefore, according to their effects today.

We need to stop divorcing ourselves from reality. While that might seem to begin with investigation of the lived experience of the America people, we have a further precondition: respect for those that serve the public welfare. It is evil to attack those that stand in the path of danger to save lives.