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While this argument may comfort mainstream liberals, it’s not one that reflects the history — or the present — of socialism in the Midwest.
The theory is that more bold left-wing ideas might appeal to some voters on the coasts, but average folks in the heartland aren’t interested in scary ideas like socialism.
From the workers’ struggles in the 19th and 20th centuries that won the eight-hour workday to the growth of a fighting labor movement to my own election as a millennial socialist city council member in Chicago, Midwesterners have consistently backed socialist movements and socialist candidates that reject the political status quo and fight for the working-class values of solidarity and equality.
Indeed, despite what Duckworth or anyone else might think, socialists have a long history in this region. Eugene Debs, whose labor and political activism in the around the turn of the 20th century made him the most important socialist organizer in American history (and one of Bernie Sanders’ icons), is from Terre Haute, Indiana. “Sewer socialists” governed Milwaukee and other areas of Wisconsin for decades, including Victor L. Berger, who in 1910 was elected to the House of Representatives — the same position Ocasio-Cortez is on the verge of winning this November.
Midwestern cities and towns such as Dayton, Ohio, Minneapolis, Minnesota and Flint, Michigan, all have proud socialist backgrounds. “Appeal to Reason,” the most widely read socialist publication in U.S. history, was published out on the plains of Girard, Kansas; Oklahoma was a national hotbed for Socialist Party organizing for much of the 20th century’s first half.
The Midwest has also been home to militant worker organizing for over a century, from the Haymarket massacre in Chicago that sparked the modern American labor movement as we know it, to the Flint sit-down strikes of the 1936-1937 which upended the U.S. auto industry, to the founding of public-sector unionism out of Wisconsin in the 1950s, to more recent fights like the Chicago Teachers Union’s 2012 strike.
Far from being allergic to socialism and class struggle, as Duckworth suggests, the Midwest has always been a region steeped in it — even leading the way.
This isn’t all ancient history, either. In the most recent Democratic presidential primary, Sen. Bernie Sanders — for whom I was a proud delegate to the Democratic National Convention — ran an unapologetically left-wing campaign, proudly fighting for popular policies like Medicare for all, a $15 minimum wage and free public college, all while proclaiming himself a “democratic socialist.”
Were Midwesterners scared off by his clear embrace of socialist ideas? Far from it. Sanders won primaries throughout the Midwest, in states like Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan and Indiana and barely lost in Iowa, Missouri and Illinois.
Far from being allergic to socialism and class struggle, as Duckworth suggests, the Midwest has always been a region steeped in it — even leading the way.
This isn’t all ancient history, either. In the most recent Democratic presidential primary, Sen. Bernie Sanders — for whom I was a proud delegate to the Democratic National Convention — ran an unapologetically left-wing campaign, proudly fighting for popular policies like Medicare for all, a $15 minimum wage and free public college, all while proclaiming himself a “democratic socialist.”
Were Midwesterners scared off by his clear embrace of socialist ideas? Far from it. Sanders won primaries throughout the Midwest, in states like Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan and Indiana and barely lost in Iowa, Missouri and Illinois.
Indeed, this hunger for anti-corporate, anti-establishment politics is spreading throughout the midwest. You can see it in the massive growth of the Democratic Socialists of America — currently boasting over 44,000 members. Ocasio-Cortez and I are both members of DSA, which has seen chapters spring up everywhere from Indianapolis and Cincinnati to Des Moines, Iowa and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. My own chapter in Chicago now has over 1,500 members.
The Democratic establishment may not want to acknowledge the growing popularity of the party’s left flank and its agenda of fighting for real social, racial and economic justice. But if they hope to win, it’s time they embrace it. If they don’t, we’ll take them head-on.
Opinion | Dear Democrats: Midwesterners aren’t scared of socialism — they’re hungry for it
