Channels, Spring 2017

Channels • 2017 • Volume 1 • Number 2 Page 71 too satisfied in the minor electoral victories of urban mayors and scattered Congressmen, similar to Bernie Sanders. Therefore, America’s centralizing trend climaxed in the New Deal, a few steps short of Socialism as were the men who created it. The English Labour Party went much farther, creating a full welfare state and nationalizing much of the economy. If there was an established, organized Socialist Party in America with a national base of support, perhaps it would have achieved political leadership and the Democratic Party would have faded somewhat in the fashion of the English Liberal Party. To create such a party in America, there would need to be a greater emphasis on civil rights and freedoms to allay the suspicions of the more independent American citizenry. Nevertheless, from Debs’ appeals for the rights of minorities and women to Bernie Sanders’ self- proclaimed feminism and advocacy of LGBT rights, American Socialism has had this socially loosening component ahead of the mainstream Democratic Party. Thus, the main thing holding back the establishment of a formal American Socialism in both Debs’ time and the present day has been an insufficient focus on the organization of a formal political party structure extended throughout the country which, if presented with the right circumstances, could achieve political preeminence, if only for a time.