Sen. Bernie Sanders, America’s richest socialist (he owns three houses, after all), just announced that he’s running for president. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a democratic socialist who just moved into some expensive new digs in an exclusive Washington, D.C., neighborhood, wants the government to take over … well, everything. And prominent Democrats are pushing for state-run health care and even new tax rates as high as 90% so they can redistribute wealth.
2020 will be an election about socialism, plain and simple. But President Trump on Monday had four clear words for the coming wave of socialism: Not on my watch.
“Here, in the United States, we are alarmed by new calls to adopt socialism in our country. America was founded on liberty and independence — not government coercion, domination and control,” Trump said in a speech in Miami on President’s Day.
“And to those who would try to impose socialism on the United States, we again deliver a very simple message: America will never be a socialist country,” Trump said to cheers.
In his speech to the Venezuelan American Community, Trump ripped the once-rich oil country, which has crashed and burned, with hundreds of thousands of residents fleeing and inflation skyrocketing. “Many of you in the room know what it feels like to be blessed with freedom after living under the oppression of socialism and communism. In Venezuela, the people are on the brink of reclaiming their own liberty,” he said.
Not long ago, Venezuela was the wealthiest nation, by far, in South America. But years of socialist rule have brought this once-thriving nation to the brink of ruin. That’s where it is today.
The tyrannical socialist government nationalized private industries and took over private businesses. They engaged in massive wealth confiscation, shut down free markets, suppressed free speech, and set up a relentless propaganda machine, rigged elections, used the government to persecute their political opponents, and destroyed the impartial rule of law.
In other words, the socialists have done in Venezuela all of the same things that socialists, communists, totalitarians have done everywhere that they’ve had a chance to rule. The results have been catastrophic.
Almost 90 percent of Venezuelans now live in poverty.
In 2018, hyperinflation in Venezuela exceeded 1 million percent. Crippling shortages of food and medicine plague the country. Socialism has so completely ravaged this great country that even the world’s largest reserves of oil are no longer enough to keep the lights on. This will never happen to us.
Socialism, the president said, is on its last legs while democracy is spreading.
“A new day is coming in Latin America,” Trump said. “In Venezuela, and across the Western Hemisphere, socialism is dying, and liberty, prosperity and democracy are being reborn.”
“There’s nothing less Democratic than socialism, which always gives rise to tyranny,” he said, calling the political system “a failed ideology” that has “shut down free markets, repressed free speech,” and “destroyed the rule of law.”
“Socialism is a sad and discredited ideology rooted in the total ignorance of history and human nature,” Trump said. “Which is why socialism must always give rise to tyranny … Socialism is about one thing only: power for the ruling class.”
But that’s just where Democrats are headed. Misjudging the mood of America (once again), the party is moving beyond its “progressive” ideology and straight into full-blown socialism. In fact, the Democratic Socialists of America told the Associated Press that they have 42 candidates at the federal, state, and local levels. Some are running at the upper echelon, like Maine Democratic Senate candidate Zak Ringelstein, who announced last week he’ll run as a Democratic Socialist.
The tried-and-failed political philosophy is drawing support from the rank and file. In a Gallup poll last year, 57 percent of Democrats, compared to 16 percent of Republicans, say they have a “positive view of socialism.”
But Trump predicted that the end of socialism is near.
“The twilight hour of socialism has arrived in our hemisphere — and, frankly, in many, many places around the world. The days of socialism and communism are numbered not only in Venezuela, but in Nicaragua and in Cuba as well,” he said to cheers.
“Socialism promises prosperity, but it delivers poverty. Socialism promises unity, but it delivers hatred and it delivers division,” said the president. “Socialism promises a better future, but it always returns to the darkest chapters of the past. That never fails. It always happens.”