Why do people think Obama is a socialist?

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Seriously, I just want to know.

he is no more a socialist than FDR. i suspect that the bulk of the people who level the term "socialist" as an epithet towards people to which they fancy themselves as superior, would not know a socialist if francois mitterand himself crawled out of his grave and kissed them on both cheeks. it is mostly akin to the old school yard taunt, "yer mother wears combat boots!"

I think they use the term "socialism" in the US to scare people. A combination of fear and ignorance makes it easy for the US media to spread propaganda.

He is no socialist. He's hardly a traditional Democrat.

Its where he's been, who he's been with, and where he came from. Almost everything in his history would point in that direction (at least what isn't still sealed).

That said though was he anywhere near the ultimate effectiveness that many on the left were hoping for? No, in fact I get the impression that the left was even more irritated with him than the right because they were conned into voting for him and got almost nothing they wanted whereas the right still hated Obamacare, hated the big stimulus packages, hate the stalemate on cutting spending, knew what they'd be getting from him there already but they can still say he didn't turn Iraq and Afghanistan into two instant Vietnams on election, nor was he able to significantly hike taxes. In that sense he let 90% of leftist's expectation's down and was only 60% as bad as the conservatives thought he would be.

The same reason people think Bush is a fascist. People are just drama queens.

First, it's right in line with the Republican Party meme of Obama as the alien, sinister, Kenyan, worldly, U.N.-loving "other", who doesn't look like us & doesn't "share our values". It's a transparent play to the fears & prejudices of white Americans, specifically the less educated among us. Just look at the "wink-wink" nod the party has given to the "Birther" movement. On the whole this isn't a terribly sophisticated group that they're playing to, but the fact is that they constitute (by my estimate) somewhere around 25-30% of the American electorate. Scary.

But there's something else at work here too. By labeling Obama's essentially centrist policies as "socialist", it effectively defines those policies as politically out-of-bounds, as unacceptably leftist. Rather than a pendulum, use the metaphor of a spotlight that swings back & forth from time to time. What's within the spotlight at a certain time is what's considered acceptable to say, or considered within the bounds of the politically possible. Since the very word "socialist" has long been demonized in American political discourse, labeling his policies as such helps to move that spotlight further to the right. Thus, even things like modest health-care reform, economic stimulus & expansionary monetary policy are labeled as politically unacceptable.

People don't know what corporatism is.

Only way for Obama to look "left wing" to you is to stand on the extreme right while looking at him.

There's your answer.

The Lion King is an exponent of Crony Capitalism. It is good old fashioned coproratism that goes back to the time of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Back in the day it used to be called The Progressive Movement.

ruveyn

I damn well know Obama isn't a socialist... but I wish he was.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Because he's black.

It's the obvious answer, isn't it? Nobody said Clinton was a socialist.

He's a socialist? That's news to me.

Because Fox News and his political opponents keep calling him one, I suspect. The dumber ones say he's waging class warfare on the rich, and equate that to trying to destroy capitalism altogether. The smarter ones point to the auto bailouts and call them "government redistribution of wealth". But all of them are banking on the idea that the general conservative electorate has no clue what actual socialism looks like.