The lessons to be learned from the UK’s snap election on Thursday are numerous. But amongst all the analysis of a hung Parliament and establishment of a minority government is a larger point with resonance across the ocean. Labour, under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, has refuted Tony Blair-era centrism and re-embraced hard Left positions. Corbyn is the first unabashed socialist Labour leader in four decades. Though the General Election did not give Labor a majority of seats in the House of Commons, Labour made substantial gains. Having now weakened Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservatives, Labour may have put itself in a position to take control in time for the next general election, three years hence.
The United States has a history of socialism in its own politics, though the last time a socialist candidate polled prominently in a Presidential election was over a century ago. The charismatic orator Eugene Debs won slightly less than 6% of the popular vote in the 1912 contest. The Democratic winner of that contest, Woodrow Wilson, had Debs jailed six years later for speaking out against conscription for World War I. Since Debs’ death, socialism in the United States has been invoked more as an epithet than as a solution, seen as an idea out of fashion, a failed strategy kept alive only in the nightmares and straw men arguments of conservatives.
Returning to the present day, the youth vote radically reshaped the UK snap election. Estimates are that 70% of 18-24 year olds turned out, which is a rate of participation unheard of in this country. Electing a Democratic Socialist or Socialist candidate in this country, should one stand for election, might depend on a kind of engagement that is possible, though it remains to be seen if young American voters can be a reliable bloc. Millennials, by in large, are more liberal on social issues and public policy. In time, their impact will be felt more profoundly. This assumes, of course, that their political views don’t shift with the passage of time.
The institution of a socialist government in America, due to strong historical resistance, might require special circumstances. As some have already commented, though this is purely hypothetical, Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders may well have won the 2016 Presidential Election against Donald Trump. At the same time, Sanders might have handily lost to a more centrist Republican. It might be too tall an order for socialism or democratic socialism to be installed in this country on its own terms and merits.
Opponents will always cling to the capitalist system as the only effective economic system ever devised. In their minds, the safety net and entitlement programs demanded by socialism will eventually bankrupt any nation. Here the argument has stalemated for decades, in the United States and in Europe both.
Making a strict comparison between the UK and the USA has its limitations. The results of Britain’s latest vote shows a divided nation that, while it might be discouraged and underwhelmed with Conservative rule, isn’t quite ready to throw its support behind a government indebted to an idea of governance once thought to be passe and past its prime. Socialism in the United States has never really been tried, and as polarized as we are politically today, I imagine it would not be adopted without a tremendous struggle and a correspondingly enormous amount of resentment on the part of those who reject it.
The population of the United States continues to grow. The same is true for the planet we inhabit. If Karl Marx is to be believed, the establishment of communism is a matter of certainty. Put that way, capitalism is in its late stages and we ought to prepare for the end game. No one can predict the future, but these times are surely unsettled, hostile, and uncertain. The election of Donald Trump is evidence of this, much as Brexit was for the UK. The electorate of both countries is dissatisfied and unsure of who or what can rescue them from their problems. If American voters will throw their support to an untested political novice with a boatload of baggage, perhaps they might even contemplate socialism, especially if Trump fails. Those who want placid waters and no turbulence will be out of luck for a long while. The middle of the road is no one’s destination now.