Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) introduced a resolution on Monday to condemn “the growing socialist movement in our country” and to take a stand for freedom.
“We’re at a pivotal time in our great nation’s history,” Daines said while speaking on the Senate floor. “America was founded upon the principles of liberty, the free enterprise system, and the promotion of national sovereignty and a strong national defense — under these principles we have built the greatest country in the history of the world.”
“We have shown the world time, and time again, the genius of American ingenuity and the grit of American determination,” he continued. “What makes America so great is not that we are bonded by one ethnicity or one race, but that we are bonded together by the idea of liberty.”
The Montana senator put forth that Democrats have strayed from the values that the party has historically held and its voice is subsequently being replaced with “a radical, socialist, far left movement.”
“The words and the actions of certain radical members of the Democratic House highlight this new standard for the Democratic Party,” Daines said, seemingly taking aim at Democratic socialist and self-proclaimed “radical” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), as well as her Squad members Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA).
“Radical Democrats are advocating for disastrous policies that would wreck our economy under the guise of cleaning up the environment,” he continued before adding that “fantasy policies” like the Green New Deal and Medicare for All would be “a disaster” for the American people.
“We, as Americans have a choice: one path leads to complete government control, undermining our constitution and our American way of life – the other path is the path of freedom,” Daines said. “Capitalism and the free enterprise system has done more than any other system in the world to lift people out of poverty.”
The Senate resolution, first obtained by Fox News, not only acknowledges that socialism is a failed ideology that poses a threat to freedom, liberty, and economic prosperity but also accepts that it is a “failed experiment” that “inevitably ends in misery and suffering.”
It further declares that the United States “has been a beacon of light shining like a lighthouse to the rest of the world,” proclaims that freedom and liberty are the surest foundation of government, and affirms that the United States will never be a socialist country.
The resolution condemning socialism comes several months after Republican House Conference Chair Liz Cheney gave a speech outside the Capitol Building echoing similar sentiments.
Cheney told a crowd in April that Democrats need to decide whether they are still the party of former President John F. Kennedy or want to continue down the path towards socialism like Ocasio-Cortez.
“President Kennedy understood the miracle of our founding and that freedom was at the very heart of it. He understood the sacred duty that each generation bears to defend and protect that freedom,” Cheney said at the time. “[He knew] ‘the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God’ and he knew that socialism extinguishes freedom.”
“It is because the American free enterprise system thrives on innovation and it rewards entrepreneurs and employees who pursue their dreams and take that leap of faith,” Daines continued. “That is what freedom looks like.”
“In the face of this extremism we see bubbling up right over in that other chamber — the U.S House of Representatives — we must stand strong for the values that made America what it is today,” he added.