I can see clearly now. For many years, the left worked an elaborate shell game, pushing socialist ideas while denying any affection for socialism or its prophet, Karl Marx. The American public had rightfully been suspicious of socialism, having seen thug socialist regimes in the Soviet Union, Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, Eastern Europe, China, North Korea, Cuba, and other places take power, then turn to regimentation, oppression, and, ultimately, mass murder. They are the grisly legacy of the 20th Century, the Century of Socialist Warfare.
Socialist adopted words like “fairness” and “progressive” and “equal” to describe their proposals
While those examples of socialist governments played out their morality tales and filled their rivers of human blood, leftists and Progressives and their Democrat successors began denying that the bloodletting had anything to do with ‘real’ socialism. When the evidence was undeniable, they said that those regimes made mistakes that caused them to fail. Under true socialism, universal human happiness would be the norm, and poverty would disappear. In debates, those pushing socialist ideas knew it was fatal to admit any fondness for socialism, so they denied it. They adopted words like “fairness” and “progressive” and “equal” to describe their proposals.
Then in 2016, when leftists were blissfully expecting the election of another crypto-socialist to follow the crypto-socialist Obama, the bottom fell out of their world. They had barely been able to contain their excitement and glee as the 44th president destroyed American prestige around the world, ballooned the national debt, weaponized numerous federal agencies against political enemies, threw the doors open to illegal immigration, illegal drugs, and terrorists, and pushed the heavy hand of government further and further into the lives of every American. Progressives had always seen the American Constitution and its traditions as the main obstacle to their hopes for domination and control over the rest of us. Contempt for the Constitution and for the American people meant that a socialist future lay just over the horizon, if they could bring two more terms of a true-believer socialist in the White House with the 2016 election. They were so close!
Then Donald Trump won the presidency. The first reaction was shock and denial. Trump was the perfect enemy for Progressives. He was a plutocrat, after all. He’s rich, they hissed. He must have stolen the election! That idea failed. Others launched a coup attempt, confidently expecting to trap the president-elect in their snares. They used every trick in the book for two straight years, then their hand-picked henchmen finished their great inquisition with a humiliating admission: “Cheeeeeee!! Uh, we got nuthin.’ But maybe somebody else can nail him for “obstruction of justice.”
Oddly, these failures to remove the 45th President from office seem only to have emboldened the socialists. They grew so smug in Obama’s second term, believing they were unstoppable, and they began to let their guard down. Even after Trump won, they all assumed he was so dumb and so rotten that people would finally conclude that socialism had been the right choice all along. More importantly, they assumed that anyone who had voted for Trump was too dumb to know any better.
I can see clearly now, because now the socialists aren’t trying to hide it anymore. They’re proud of it! They shout it from the rooftops! They affirm it on national news broadcasts. They don’t mind if you call them socialists. They resurrect failed socialist ideas from the past, call them new ideas for today, and expect everyone to jump for joy along with them.
Socialists believe in using the power of government to impose their notions of proper behavior on the citizens. They know if they control economic behavior, they can control everything. Do any of these examples sound familiar? They’re all proposals to control economic or social behavior for the political benefit of socialist politicians.
A big city mayor who is running for president said recently that there’s plenty of money in the economy, it’s just in the wrong hands! His solution: use the power of government to take money from the wealthy and give it to people who will vote for him. Government knows best who should have money.
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A US senator who is running for president wants to fine companies for paying employees “unequal” wages. She wants to use the power of government to tell companies what they pay their employees. Government knows best what employees should be paid.
Another US senator who is running for president wants government to decide how much companies will be allowed to charge for drugs. In other words, he wants price controls on medicines. Government knows best what drugs should cost.
Many candidates for president want a big hike in taxes on wealthy Americans. They say it will be more “fair” than the progressive tax system we already have. Wealthy Americans already pay the lion’s share of taxes, and they pay at a higher tax rate because their incomes are high. Government knows best how much of their earnings it should allow taxpayers to keep.
Many candidates for president do not worry about piling up debt for future generations. After all, tax and spend policies have brought them to the brink of victory over the restrictions imposed by the Constitution. Debt increased by nearly $10 trillion between 2009 and 2017. Today, approximately 10% of the federal budget is payments on the national debt, amounting to nearly $300 billion. They think they’ll win and have total control before the debt causes an economic collapse. Government always knows best how to manage our fiscal needs.
...Government knows best...
Many candidates for president want a single-payer health system. That means that government will impose wage and price controls in the health care industry. Wage and price controls ALWAYS lead to shortages and suffering. Government knows best how much to pay physicians, nurses, and hospitals for their services.
Many candidates for president want the US border to continue to be wide open, welcoming anyone who wants to live here. They think they’ll benefit from the votes the new arrivals will cast. These same candidates do not seem concerned about the cost these aliens bring to the taxpayers of the country. They do not show concern for the crime, the drugs, and the reduced wages those who are already citizens must bear. Government knows best who should be allowed across the border, and government likes it when many of those people are illegals.
Some candidates for president want to use the power of government to break up corporations it doesn’t like. The federal government actually took over many large companies between 2009 and 2012, changed them, and “allowed” them to resume business. Government always knows which companies are good or bad, and knows how to make them behave.
A US senator running for president wants government to get together with farmers to decide how much product is needed, then set a guaranteed price for the product that would give farmers a “living wage.” Every socialist government has followed this path, and it has led to ruin and failure every time. You’d think someone might have noticed this has been tried before, but government always knows best how much corn and cotton and wheat we’ll need next year. The government is made of experts, after all.
Socialists distrust freedom. Socialists want to use the power of government to impose their will on the rest of us
When Bernie Sanders croaks at a crowd that we need to use the post office as a bank for poor people, he thinks that no one remembers that the proposal came straight out of the 1896 Populist Party platform, almost word for word. He hopes no one remembers that this idea has been tried, too, and it was another failure.
When Bernie Sanders stands up in front of a crowd and conjures Eugene V. Debs and Vladimir Lenin shaking their fists as they harangue starving crowds from a rail car, he uses the clenched fist of the socialist cause. It means ‘we will smash you,’ ‘we will wreck your capitalist system, and we will impose the rule of the ‘people’ on everyone who resists. It means we will use force against all those who resist us, sooner or later.
So look around. Those people we hear calling for socialism and making no apologies? They mean it. Those people who were calling for socialism a year or two ago, but who have backed away from it since then? They mean it, too, but they have begun to walk it back, to use more soothing words in their call for oppression and warfare against the rest of us, all in the name of ‘fairness’ and ‘social justice.’
Socialists distrust freedom. Socialists want to use the power of government to impose their will on the rest of us. The goal is so beautiful, so noble, that they always believe the glorious ends justify the murderous means. With the perfect example of Venezuela on our doorstep, they prefer to ignore the lessons of that socialist disaster. With straight faces, they wave their clenched fists and shout for fairness and lower prices and socialism.
I get it. I can see clearly now.
Dr. Bruce Smith (Inkwell, Hearth and Plow) is a retired professor of history and a lifelong observer of politics and world events. He holds degrees from Indiana University and the University of Notre Dame. In addition to writing, he works as a caretaker and handyman. His non-fiction book The War Comes to Plum Street, about daily life in the 1930s and during World War II, may be ordered from Indiana University Press.
I can see clearly now. For many years, the left worked an elaborate shell game, pushing socialist ideas while denying any affection for socialism or its prophet, Karl Marx. The American public had rightfully been suspicious of socialism, having seen thug socialist regimes in the Soviet Union, Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, Eastern Europe, China, North Korea, Cuba, and other places take power, then turn to regimentation, oppression, and, ultimately, mass murder. They are the grisly legacy of the 20th Century, the Century of Socialist Warfare. 
