One of the nice things about having an avowed socialist running in the American presidential campaign is that it forces the capitalist candidates, along with observers of the race, to do a better job of explaining why socialism is wrong.
This is a healthy development. Many Americans who are too young to remember the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics are susceptible to the appeal of "free" college and health care, to be funded by increased taxes on "millionaires and billionaires."
While just about every U.S. House of Representatives member from New England is a foregone-conclusion pro-impeachment vote this week, a first-term congressman from Maine is under extraordinary pressure.
U.S. Representative Jared Golden, a Democrat, lost the 2018 congressional race to the Republican incumbent according to vote-counting procedures used in the vast majority of the country, since the Republican got more votes than he did. But Maine now has ranked-choice voting, and since no candidate got a majority of votes, the second-choice selections of voters who voted for two left-of-center fringe candidates put Golden over the top in subsequent re-figuring.
