Over the last couple of weeks, we have seen a wave of democratic-socialists receive their party’s endorsement through a primary election. This has caused a wave of fear within the status quo corporate democrats and of course the neoliberal Republicans who take great pride in profiting off of the people through the government treasury. My dissent is not with Mamdani. My dissent is with the people who have ignored the voices of democratic-socialists, and now are trying to label them using the fear that has kept the American People in a state of service to capitalist dogma and nationalism.

Democratic-socialism does embrace some socialist ideals. Tax money is spent on the populace through government service, not on capitalist services in place of the government. Tax money is used for the greater good, and to decrease the wage gap between the poorest and richest by shifting the wealth through proportional taxes. Democratic-socialism wants to regulate capitalism (not starve it, or control it completely.) The Soviet Union and China have proved that complete state control of economics does not provide growth or the improvement of life within their far left socialist paradigm called communism. Democratic-socialism is already active in many European countries, and their citizens are benefitting from it. Are their democratic-socialists that identify closer to communists? Yes, I am sure of this. The majority do not. They identify closer to our European democratic-socialists colleagues.

Corporate democrats and their colleagues, the far right Republicans, embrace capitalism in the neoliberal form. Neoliberalism or neoliberal capitalism is free of regulation. It enables corporations to profit at will from consumers, at the expense of workers, and through government service contracts, grants, and subsidies. Neoliberalism is a form of corporate socialism that serves corporations and their shareholders, and uses the public tax dollars as their personal bank account. We can see this openly in our military industrial complex. War is good for their business. We can see this openly in Space and Alternative Energy contracts. Look at Elon Musk’s industries. They profit off of our tax dollar. Without it, I’m not sure Musk is approaching billionaire status, let alone trillionaire status. Musk’s Tesla survived early on through energy tax credits provided by the government.

This corporate governance is the swamp. Our current presidential administration and its allies in the legislative and judicial branch are corrupting the nation by making decisions that put us closer to an oligarchic government ruled by a board of regents, rather than representatives who represent the public’s interest. This is what the democratic-socialists want to end, and end now. This group of young and old civilians want to see the era of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal return, and then some. Eisenhower supported this deal, because it served the public not the corporation. Imagine trying to get Citizen’s United through the Eisenhower, Kennedy, or Johnson administrations? It would have fallen flat on its ass. The pervading selfishness Carter warned us about erupted due to his failures in office. It came with Reagan’s famous slogan, “I’m from the government, I’m here to help.” Ronald Reagan bred that distrust and the rise of nationalism and corporate governance. He was from the government, and he did not help. He and his fellow Republican successors have increased this countries deficit by trillions while saying social programs like Snap, Social Security, were socialism or entitlements. They just want to profit off of these tax monies that we pay, rather than give them back to the citizens who paid for them.

Here is where the democratic socialist steps in. We don’t see a spending problem in governance. We see a revenue problem. Taxes on the richest of society are too low, and what they do have to pay now is being laundered away through schemes of tax credits, alleged business losses, overinflated debt on real estate, and so called foreign investment (off-shore holdings.) Warren Buffet of Berkshire Hathaway has stated that if all billion dollar companies paid their fair share of taxes we would not have a revenue problem (paraphrase.)

The second issue is the alleged spending issue. The spending in governance is usually geared towards private enterprise. Cities around the country pay for monopoly contracts to provide trash, internet, cable television, water and sewer services. The contracts continue to rise in price eating property tax revenues, while citizens pay their fees for service usage. The citizens pay twice(tax and service.) The public services for parks, policing, fire, library, and social programs at the city levels always get short changed. Why should a city like Chicago have to use a fire engine 10 years past its 15-20 year life span? By doing that the insurance rates go up. The citizens pay twice.

Democratic-Socialists see government service as a zero profit industry. They feel that trash, internet, water, sewer, cable, fire, library, police, parks, and streets are all best taken care of by public service, rather than private service. This keeps costs down by eliminating the for profit enterprises from invading the public treasury. We will see an increase in taxes, but we will see a reduction in usage fees. Capital improvements will be paid for by bonds(loans on anticipate tax revenue,) rather than straight up increases on the bill that private enterprise hits you with. An example is my water bill tripled last year in expense. Iowa – American Water that serves my community replaced all of our supply lines in my neighborhood. They used private contractors to do so. All of my neighbors and I are paying for it. We will never see that expense go down. Whereas if the city did it, we could see a decrease in cost when the bond was paid off. Our supply lines were pre-1960. Some neighbors had lead supply pipes. Thankfully, my house had steel.

Democratic-Socialists through graduated tax increases on the wealthy corporations and property owners can pay for free public transportation, thus eliminating fares. They can provide subsidized daycare. They would eliminate TiF districts to keep corporate raiders from taking advantage of cities, forcing them to invest in their new home through property taxes and capital improvements. All in service of the public.

Democratic-Socialists believe the right to work laws are corrupt and favor the corporation. Employees through their unions need to work with their ownership groups to enhance quality of life with profit being smaller and growth more stable, than what is currently practiced. Democratic-Socialists want to replace the health insurance industry with Medicare for All. An all public health care system would enhance rural care, eliminate medical bankruptcies, and lower costs. This is paid for by taxes that would be lower than current insurance premiums. Corporations would no longer have to provide insurance. They would pay a tax that would cost less than their current insurance contacts toward Medicare for all.

Democratic-Socialists want to eliminate corporate welfare, subsidies, and bloated military industrial complex costs. By placing military and space research and development in house this will force the MIC industries to lower their prices and submit bids. It reopens the market to smaller industries and inventors to participate in the process. We need to eliminate the $20,000 toilet from a new ship’s cost.

Democratic-Socialists want to eliminate the voucher process for education. Bleeding public tax dollars to private enterprise serves the population that needs the money the least. If you can afford a private school, your children already have the advantages of wealth. They have their physical needs met. Most have their emotional needs met. Public tax dollars need to be used for the betterment of the public. By having fully funded public schools, we can hire more teachers, counselors, therapists, and service personnel to serve the children and parents that need more help. We also want K-16 to be free. Education raises the standard of living. It does not matter if that education is service, academic, technological, or trade. We are giving the opportunity for every citizen the freedom to succeed without dying in debt to get there.

Will there be abusers to such a paradigm? Sure there will. There are abusers in every program. When you serve millions, a few thousand might find a loophole. What is more important the service to millions or the abuse of a few thousand. Look at the situation as loss prevention in retail. You will always have thieves. Do we punish the innocent for the thieves at the big box store? Well currently, our government is thanks to the Big Bad Beautiful (POS) Bill.

Is Mamdani scaring the establishment? Yes he is. People fear change. They fear the unknown. Yet, here he is serving the public. Does his Islamic background scare you? Why? His religion does not affect his ability to care about the people of his city. If Bernie Sanders, Zohran Mamdani, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who are Jewish, Muslim, and Christian respectfully can work together toward a common goal, than I just see an opportunity for even an atheist to seize the day to help them. Our religious beliefs are separate from the desire to make people’s lives better through governance.

I dissent with the corporate fear mongers. I dissent with those that carry a bias through Nationalist or Conservative paradigms. If you could learn to grasp, understand, and even empathize with these ideals one might benefit from them. I believe in the Mamdani effect. I believe in the Sanders way of life. I believe in Ocasio-Cortez’s ideals. I’m tried of the corporate status quo screwing the populace. These men and women are just the right people to pull our society back from the fascist capitalists. This is our country too. We care about our citizens…. …so it goes…