president of the american sociological association is currently an honorary chair of the democratic socialists of america she's one of the people responsible for the fact that you can register to vote at the d.m.v. in one thousand nine hundred three she co-founded humans serve an organization with the goal of increasing voter registration by linking vehicle registration with access to social services and voting human service initiative was incorporated into the national voter registration act of one thousand nine hundred three more commonly known as the motor voter bill and signed into law by president bill clinton in addition to numerous scholarly articles professor cohen is the author of a dozen books the latest being who is afraid of frances pox fox been the essential writings of the professor glenn beck loves to hate it's my honor to welcome professor proven from our studios in new york city welcome thanks for being with us i'm. so glad for the chance to talk with you thank you i'd like to start in a way that might be kind of backwards start with the reaction to your activism and philosophy and then

percent here of her take on this is maria smart she is the national director of the democratic socialists of america maria welcome to the show thanks for having me so as a democratic socialist what's your take on this pew survey it's the least favorable term in america but it also has a lot of there's a lot of people who like it you know almost a third of the nation as i said. yeah we are not surprised by this survey and these numbers i saw some media coverage saying the numbers aren't change from a year ago before occupy wall street exploded onto the scene so there's some analysis and said oh occupy didn't have an impact on the way americans think about the economy but my analysis of this survey is really that americans have been hurting for a long time for several years and in fact for thirty years we've had a class war waged by the wealthy in this country by the one percent and people are really feeling it you know wages are stagnating income inequality is growing and people are pissed off that's why occupy was able to capture everyone's imagination and continues to organize to this day so yes so

originally to the fact that, yes, america is less social democratic, less socialistic than europe and that's 'impeerically true. the one most distinguishing feature of nation of immigrants and that creates a very different kind of nation and a nation bound together by love of country and not for love of we've been here for 800 years so that's a real difference. >> let me ask you this, will, in the debates on thursday in jacksonville, newt gingrich plays to this a lot. he talks about the fact that i am not going to accept that america is in decline. if you want that, you're with barack obama. so linking the idea of america being in economic decline with the idea that you don't believe in american exceptionalism, i follow the economy very closely. america is in relative economic decline compared to china and compared to india and brazil and places like that. that is an economic fact. does that make me anti-american to say that? >> no. this allows me to explain the practical applications. i'm fascinated to see if harold disagrees with me on that. that rugged individualism that i described through the oakland as, that manifests in things like six-month

you've got democratic socialists and america -- you've got a whole lot of folks. you've got some christian evangelicals out there. the seminary where i'm headed -- i just left princeton, you all know, i'm going back to new york, we've got a union theological seminary occupy chaplaincy of 45 pastor, and they're not there for student loans. [laughter] you see what i mean? but i hear what you're saying, the movement must deal with these issues. of course there's going to be racism in the occupy movement. this is america. what do you expect? [cheers and applause] all white folk ain't not going to become john brown overnight. that's not going to happen. [laughter] it's not going to become miles orton overnight. but if they're trying to fight against racism, you have got to help them fight against racism. [applause] come together. let's fight against this homophobia. make sure our jewish brothers and sisters feel open if they're willing to be critical about the state of israel vis-a-vis the occupation. [applause] see what i mean? that's very important. palestinians, the

democrat in ohio. caller: good morning. good morning to america of. i just wanted to make a response to the call that i heard previously from another republican who believes obama is a socialistmarxist, a communist. you know, these people have all this rhetoric in their minds from rush limbaugh and glenn b beck. they never addressed the corporations selling our infrastructure out to the communists. which party votes completely in line with giving these companies tax breaks and write-offs and having no basic principle of maybe taxing these profits that are being brought over from these companies? it is the republican party, the party of communism -- sporting communism. host: let's take a look at the latest polling data. it says the tracking of the republican primary in florida wraps up with mitt romney at 39% and newt gingrich at 31%. rick santorum at 15% and ron paul at 11%. liz smith writes in on twitter and says -- let's take a listen now to newt gingrich on the campaign trail in florida yesterday. [video clip] >> with your help, we are really going to change things. this is a major difference between me and romney. the fact is, a brand new article came as of europe last ni