I am deeply disappointed that you, as my Congressional representative, saw fit to sign on to Concurrent Resolution 58 condemning a caricatured version of “socialism.” There are many ways to understand socialism, and this resolution collapses them into a familiar right-wing bogeyman, conjuring sinister un-American influences pushing us down the slippery slope to communism and one-party dictatorship. As a retired political scientist who taught at Syracuse University for 34 years, I can tell you that this way of defining socialism is philosophically incorrect and politically counter-productive.
In effect, this resolution condemns the entire left wing of the political spectrum as being intrinsically illegitimate and tyrannical. What then are we to make of the Democratic Party tradition stretching back to FDR’s understanding of citizenship rights and basic freedoms as including “freedom from want”? What about the socialists and left wingers who played crucial roles in building the American labor movement? Were all the New Deal and the labor movement subversive totalitarian deviations from American traditions of liberty, as the far-right has maintained for the better part of a century? Does liberty then equate to the right-wing ideal of unrestrained capitalism and rampant inequality? And what of the current advocates of democratic socialism such as Mamdani, Ocasio-Cortez, or Sanders? Are you suggesting that they are totalitarians whose agenda opposing massive economic and political inequalities has no legitimate place in American political discourse? If so, you are saying that to me also, and to many others in your district and nationwide who believe that those inequalities are fundamentally corrosive of a democratic republic.
I have admired your outspokenness in opposition to the authoritarian power grabs of Trump and MAGA. So I am especially saddened, disappointed, and embarrassed to see you officially embracing this central element of right-wing ideology by adding your name to CR58 as my Congressional Representative. In doing so, you are providing ideological cover for the same regressive right-wing forces you so often condemn in your criticisms of MAGA.