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I don't seem like a nag on the subject, but I think we should take the rise of the Democratic Socialist/Marxist movement in the Democratic Party seriously. I doubt if any of their candidates will win in the general election in November, but with adequate financial support and a committed membership they may take over the Democratic Party.
Already presidential hopefuls California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris, and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg are courting Democratic Socialist Party endorsements while others like Sens. Chuck Schumer, Elizabeth Warren, and Mark Kelly are all claiming that the Democratic Party is a "big tent" able to accommodate a wide range of ideas.
Former Vice President Mike Pence was recently quoted as saying that "while Republicans have lost their way, Democrats have lost their minds." Democratic Socialists make clear that if they achieve power, they will fundamentally change our nation. They want to do away with Capitalism and replace it with a system based on worker and state control, better known as communism, an economic system that has never worked. For reasons never fully explained, they want to get rid of the police and close the prisons with no understanding of the anarchy that would follow. They also call for defunding ICE and once again throwing our borders open.
They want to ditch the Presidency, the Senate, and the Electoral College and pack the Supreme Court. Of course, getting rid of the first three would require constitutional amendments which these young Democratic Socialists might not be aware of because I doubt most have ever read the Constitution. Packing the Supreme Court can be done with a bill passed by the House and Senate. However, the number of Justices has been nine since passage of the Judiciary Act of 1869 and even President Roosevelt couldn't pack the court in 1937.
They advocate for free universal healthcare without explaining how it will be paid for. Such a system would mean, as it has in Great Britain and Canada, that patients will have to wait months for certain procedures and treatments. In Canada the average wait time on a referral to see a specialist is seven months. Our current healthcare isn't perfect, but it is still the best system in the world. They also advocate for free public higher education, and the cancellation of all student debt. I guess money grows on trees.
It seems most of these young Marxists don't understand what they are trying to sell. Most Democratic Socialists are over-educated young people devoid of critical thinking skills who are repeating what a succession of leftist, America hating college professors have drummed into their heads now reinforced by talking points created by the likes of AOC and Bernie Sanders. Who is providing the financing for this movement? A primary financier is Neville Roy Singham, a former American tech mogul who has so far bankrolled the movement to the tune of $500 to $600 million through a complex network of nonprofits, shell companies, and dark money donor-advised funds. He currently resides in China. Of course, there is America hating George Soros who funnels money to the movement through his Open Society Foundations focusing on criminal justice reform, immigration advocacy, and left-leaning civic engagement.
I've come to understand that few under the age of 30 have any understanding of the horrors perpetrated by communism in the 20th century. Seeing how little they know of American history and civics it is not surprising that they know nothing of the Siberian gulags where millions died, of a government created famine in the Ukraine that killed millions more, of empty stores and continuous food shortages.
They do not remember the construction of the Berlin Wall and of entire families risking their lives to escape communism. They know nothing of the Hungarian revolt of 1956 against communist control brutally put down by Soviet tanks or that nearly the same thing occurred in Czechoslovakia during the "Prague Spring," in 1968.
I doubt if many millennials or members of Gen Z are aware that under communism Venezuela went from being the richest nation in Latin America to one of the poorest in a few short years after its people bought into Communists lies. In Cuba that nation faces its most severe economic and energy collapse in decades, characterized by nationwide blackouts, extreme shortages of fuel, food, and medicine, and a projected economic contraction exceeding 6%.
These young people should also be aware that even when a communist regime fails, and eventually they all do, the negative impact of communism remains. In the former Soviet Union outside the major cities, vast regions of provincial Russia, and Central Asia have turned into economic disaster regions. Job stability has plummeted since the Soviet era, leaving aging populations in decaying, poorly maintained Soviet era concrete high rise apartment houses.
I suspect that when many of these young people hear the word "socialism" they think of socialism in the benign guise of Nordic or European socialism where high taxes on everyone support a system of a cradle to grave safety nets. However, even there the high taxes tend to depress private investment leading to low rates of entrepreneurship and innovation and stagnant economies.
It seems to me that we of the "cold war" generation need to educate our millennial and Gen Z acquaintances about the horrendous impact Marxism may have on their lives.
Thomas Kirkpatrick Sr. is a Silver Creek resident. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com