Social Democracy Doesn’t Mean Everyone Is the Same

A very American misconception about equality.

This is not Finland. Photo by Steve Harvey on Unsplash

A week ago, I had an interesting conversation at Dallas Fort Worth airport with a guy from Alabama. I was speaking with the bartender right next to my departure gate, and the Southerner, in his cowboy hat, joined our conversation.

We chatted for about 20 minutes about a lot of things, including work, Argentina and his hunting trip. I told him I was a vegan, but didn’t start preaching about it because I wasn’t looking for a fight. Because I was in Texas, talking to a dude in a cowboy hat, I also avoided politics.

And then, as we were boarding, the topic of Finland popped up.

“Oh… So you’re a communist,” he said.

How American can you be?

“Well, not exactly,” I said. “I’d say I’m a social democrat.” I tend to vote for the Green Party, but that was too hippie to say out loud in the moment.

The truth is, the centrist parties in my country are often to the left of Bernie Sanders. Finland’s center-left parties would probably be Stalinism to most people in the US.

He kept on thinking. “You know, it’s just that with socialism, everyone’s the same.”