Socialism, once a dirty word in American politics, is experiencing a rebirth thanks to politicians such as Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who make the freedom-killing doctrine seem like a way for us all to care for each other.
While the aging Baby Boomer generation largely still equates socialism with bloodthirsty dictators such as Joseph Stalin and Chairman Mao, many younger people who didn’t grow up under those fears see socialism as a Swedish utopia, where healthcare and college educations are free and people willingly and without avarice simply take care of each other.
The U.S. Senate race in Georgia serves to illustrate that dichotomy. First-term Senator David Perdue, a Republican, is locked in a surprisingly tough battle with leftist Democrat Jon Ossoff (shown). Perdue has pointed out Ossoff’s financial links to Hollywood and China as evidence that he wants to move America quickly toward socialism. Perdue even released an ad that stated that the Communist Party of America has endorsed Ossoff’s candidacy, an allegation denied by both Ossoff and the Communist Party.
But many in Georgia don’t see Ossoff’s obvious socialist leanings as a negative. In fact, many see them as a positive.
Twenty-eight-year-old Amanda Smith, a Georgia schoolteacher, told the Washington Examiner that the GOP is “making [socialism] out to be this horrible thing when really capitalism is failing us,”
“I’m more toward democratic socialism because I think that we should help people,” Smith added. “They like to quote all these countries that socialism is failing, but then you look at places like Sweden where it’s doing great.”
Of Republicans, Smith said: “They love to say taxes are going to be higher but think about all the things your higher taxes will get you. Free education, free healthcare, you don’t have student loans. Imagine that.”
Socialism, some argue, is all about caring for one another; that it’s an ideology based on universal love for our fellow man wrapped up in the form of a government.
“Why is it socialistic to want to take care of everyone?” 33-year-old Eric Anderson told the Examiner. “Why is it so horrible that everyone should not have to worry about their health?”
And 27-year-old Julia Anderson believes that socialism has gotten a bad rap due to angry rhetoric from those on the Right.
“[Socialism] sounds scary, ‘radical.’ That doesn’t sound like a good thing,” Anderson said. “Whereas sometimes there’s a need for a radical change, but that’s a necessary and good change.”
If you can believe polls anymore, the two-way race between Perdue and Ossoff is dangerously close as far as the GOP is concerned. The Real Clear Politics average currently shows Perdue ahead by nearly 3 percent, classifying the race as a toss-up as to who will ultimately win. Quinnipiac shows Ossoff leading by a percentage point.
It’s not just in Georgia that socialism is gaining support in America. In this year’s Democratic presidential primary, two far-left candidates with definite socialist leanings — Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren — actually outperformed eventual Democrat nominee Joe Biden by nearly seven points in Texas. Socialist Sanders carried California and Colorado.
While Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez like to cite the example of Sweden as the model America should emulate, the Nordic nation nearly destroyed its economy with its brief foray into actual socialism in the 1970s and ’80s. The 1990s financial crisis in Sweden saw the nation’s GDP bottom out and unemployment spike. The government was forced to raise interest rates a staggering 500 percent in order to avoid the devaluation of its currency.
In the end, what saved Sweden from collapse were free-market reforms such as deregulating financial markets, replacing public monopolies with private competition, a roll back of tax rates, and eliminating inheritance taxes.
Sweden is simply not an example of working socialism. Venezuela — a nation with natural resources which should make it wealthy — is the perfect example of what socialism ultimately brings: poverty, hunger, and rebellion.
As the American Enterprise Institute points out, “Socialism does not work because it is not consistent with fundamental principles of human behavior.” Socialism destroys incentive. Working harder for success means nothing in socialism, since those who don’t work hard (or at all) are given the same government-provided perks as those who do.
This is why the American Left’s embrace of socialism is so problematic. People such as Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are simply repackaging a failed ideology and insisting that somehow they — unlike everyone who has tried it prior to them — can make it work.
And they’re getting young people who haven’t witnessed how socialism can truly ravage a country to buy in to this lie.
