I suspect we won’t ever have a social democracy in America unless we argue for social democracy in America.

Virtually no one in American politics talks about “social democracy” as such. Seems like a pretty important absence — and opportunity!

I am interested in your genuine thoughts on this topic.

For example, Bernie is personally a democratic socialist, but his platform was almost entirely composed of Nordic style social democracy.

Social democracy is a useful term to win liberals / regular democratic voters to the left without the baggage of “socialism.”

I suspect those doing the work of reviving and popularizing “socialism” would be offended at this suggestion, but I believe we could garner a majority for “social democracy,” while it will be much harder to do the same for “socialism.”

In my mind, they are complimentary.

Social democracy is also a necessary framework for people (like me!) who are trying to transform the Democratic Party.

I can imagine a path (call it the Rainbow Coalition) to making the Dem Party into the party of social democracy. Harder to imagine it becoming dem socialist.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting socialists rebrand as social democrats — I’m suggesting “progressives” embrace social democracy.

It’s cool “socialism” is gaining traction as such, but I think there is a missing link in the chain between socialism and left-liberals.