Within the last century, social democracy as an economic model has been thoroughly denigrated by those governments and partisans who used the words "socialist" and "democratic" in an authoritarian, fascist context, be such entities on the right (from Pinochet to Franco to Nixon) or on the left (Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot). 

Those in the United States who espouse social democracy as a potential socio-economic model in this era have been thoroughly cognitively trounced by those who see no destiny for social democrats other than simple deportation in order to excise the population of such "dangerous" ideas. That so few came to the "One Nation Working Together" rally, that so small and pitiful of a group could be emotionally mustered to come to a rally at such a pivotal time in the country’s recent history, is a stark reminder of how utterly weak and weary that the American left has become, or probably always was since the loss of rural support for the Socialist Party and the arrest of Eugene Debs in the early 1900s. 

And yet, there are not many contemporaries to fancy in this day and age, as the most prominent face of socialism in the Americas is Hugo Chavez, who has not done much for the American left in his persistent refreshment of a reputation as a socialist demagogue against the United States, someone who can never be satisfied with the U.S. government’s current status, foreign or domestic. 

The left in the United States has long been portrayed by the dominant culture in the manner of outright caricature, farce, barely-disguised disgust, hilarious conspiracy-mongering, and other unpleasantries, usually as urban hippie pacifists or labor goons who sip lattes at Starbucks, constantly rail against every action of the U.S. government, bitterly rant against the religious or may even commit a violent act in the name of the people.

And so on….

It’s unfortunate that social democracy will not come to America until the Reagan generation and prior generations expire into the annals of history, and maybe then some. It’s unfortunate that the current hysteria against socialists and social democrats will not dissipate until well into the future, when those born before 1980 have all dissipated into a minority of the population and the Cold War doesn’t exist anymore than just "something that happened". 

Maybe the debate will be much more conciliatory and much less violent by that time.