Socialism is on the rise in America, but history suggests it will continue to follow the pattern that famed British wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill described as “the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.” In other words, it will fail, just as it has every previous time it has been adopted in any country. Why? Because it is not a philosophy or an ideology created to lift up the poor and create a “fairer” society. Rather, it is a means to an end – a great deception designed only for the purpose of gaining total and permanent power.
This explains why socialism quickly destroys economies and inevitably evolves into authoritarianism. There is simply no sound economic policy underpinning it. It promises unlimited subsidies on everything to everyone (except the rich), with complete disregard for the economic realities of the real world. Then, when the unwashed masses discover there isn’t enough food or gas or, indeed, money to go around, they must be terrorized into obedience.
The leaders and leading members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) don’t appear to really believe in the tenets of socialism. Nor do they have anything in common with the “working class,” for the most part. As was the case with all the socialist takeovers around the world in the 20th century, the real masterminds behind those movements were wealthy, educated elitists.
Preaching Socialism but Not Practicing It
The DSA members and most vocal progressives within today’s Democratic Party are, with few exceptions, people who had privileged upbringings, expensive educations, and rarely, if ever, wanted for anything. Perhaps Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is the one prominent radical leftist who can genuinely claim to have once been a member of the working class, born into a working-class family – though even she was raised for a time in Yorktown Heights, an affluent suburb north of New York City.
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Abdul El-Sayed, now running for the Senate with the backing of the DSA, was raised as an upper-middle-class kid. According to his financial findings, his net worth is more than $850,000 – perhaps as much as $1.2 million – and he owns at least two rental properties. So El-Sayed is a landlord, socialists’ least favorite people, next to billionaires, supposedly – but not the ones who finance their campaigns.
DSA leader Gustavo Gordillo lives off his millionaire parents, residing in a $1.5 million New York City townhome.
And who can forget America's favorite democratic socialist, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)? He may not be a member of the DSA, but he's the inspiration they cite as driving their resurgence in recent years. He has an estimated net worth of between $2.5 million and $3 million and owns three homes. Now, he didn't start rich, but he ended up there after decades of tax-funded salaries as a politician decrying the evils of capitalism - all while continuing to build his own wealth with book sales and real estate deals, and, of course, more government salaries.
The point being, socialism has seemingly never been a grassroots working-class movement. It is usually driven by wealthy elites who lust for power and realized the easiest way to obtain it was by promising the least fortunate – and usually least productive – members of society that they were poor because other people were rich. Stir up enough envy and discontent, and you’ve got yourself a revolution.
History demonstrates that champagne socialists rarely have any intention of making personal sacrifices. Their only goal often appears to be obtaining power over everyone else.
What They Do Not Teach in School
This brings us to the lesson that young socialists coming out of the Ivy League schools would do well to remember: Socialist uprisings, once successful, almost always turn on those who demonstrated in the streets, wrote the newspaper articles, preached in the universities, and organized the movements that made it possible. It seems today's young radicals were never taught about the victims of socialism, who number in the tens of millions, at least.
Adolf Hitler in Germany, Josef Stalin in the then-Soviet Union, Pol Pot in Cambodia, Mao Zedong in China, Kim Jong Il in North Korea, the Castros in Cuba, and many more have one thing in common. When they came to power, they set about getting rid of the malcontents they saw as potential threats – and that included many of the students, journalists, union leaders, professors, and activists who made their rise to power possible.
In common parlance, that’s called tying up loose ends.
When these American students were indoctrinated into socialist ideology, their teachers and professors probably left out this common characteristic of all socialist movements. And this is likely why a disturbingly large number of Americans who are too young to have lived through the Iron Curtain era believe there is simply no downside to their philosophy, while the history they were apparently never taught clearly shows there is no upside.
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