China has made impressive economic advances, thanks to Deng in no small part. I saw its advances first hand on two trips there. But socialism should be judged, first of all, by the degree to which its extends the boundaries of freedom, democracy, egalitarianism, and decision making to its citizens. Growth rates and technological development matter as do lifting people out of poverty and providing a first class education to the many, but they don’t constitute the essence of socialism nor represent the overarching aims of socialist society. If China is socialist, it is an authoritarian variety. And that should be a concern of socialists here. As for the relations between our country and theirs, the accent of our leaders should be on de-escalating tensions, cooperation and non-interference. Trump’s current heightening of tensions with China is a serious and potentially dangerous mistake. Finally, we’ve been battling authoritarian rule here for nearly 4 years and hopefully we will make a positive turn in this struggle in November. It seems too obvious to say, but China’s form of political rule wouldn’t sit well with millions of people here and rightly so. As the much maligned Michael Gorbachev correctly said. “More democracy, more socialism.”

Reading “How Democracies Die” last night and one point that the authors make is that the ascent to power of right authoritarians doesn’t depend on popular support as much as enablers on the right. In Germany and Italy, it was conservatives in each government that greased the skids for Hitler and Mussolini’s climb to power. Here the Republican Party has performed the same role as enabler of Trump and white nationalist, dictatorial rule. They too should pay a high price for their actions on election day.

Trump and team would like to start a new Cold War. The price we (and others) paid for the last one was astronomical. This one will be still higher. Only a fool would rule out a nuclear confrontation. Another reason to get out the vote against Trump and his Republican enablers.

In coming up with slogans one has to ask if this or that slogan is readily understood by people who don’t spend most of time talking politics and if the slogan is something that your adversary can easily exploit to cast you and your aims in a bad light, while at the time strengthening his hand.

I never thought on a gut level that “democracy could die” here. Other countries for sure, but not in my own backyard. Clearly, I was wrong, and I guess blinded by a form of American exceptionalism. And the odd thing is that, if it happens, it won’t happen by way of “smashing the state” in a bloody insurrection, organized from the outside. Far more likely is that it will be the result of utilization of the state and its democratic institutions and processes to eviscerate democratic structures, norms and rights by insurrectionists occupying positions within the state and dressed in suits, not army fatigues. If this were to happen, what would be left would be a dictatorial strongman in the White House and a plutocratic class, presiding, if not directly, over the empty shell of what once was a democratic state and society.