Democrats are digging a deep hole that’s going to give Trump a real opportunity to win in 2020 assuming he does not resign or get impeached. Liberals are putting all their eggs in one basket. The movers and shakers in the party are betting on socialism.

The 2018 midterms would have been a non-event if Democrats had not won a bunch of seats in Congress and turned over the House of Representatives. It was easy for the firebrand political neophytes to make gains with low voter turnouts and before the country had a chance to appreciate the significance of the political tilt of the radical victors. The policies foisted on voters were easy to sell in individual congressional districts. This will not be the case in the general election.

The socialistic rage among young people and certain ethnic groups will not engage the vast majority of Americans. The abolishment of private insurance coverage as prescribed in Bernie Sanders’ plan for health care, over taxation espoused by every Democratic candidate for president that will destroy our vibrant economy and the New Green Deal are nothing more than a fairy tales told by misinformed snake oil salesmen. Our government is not going to outlaw airplanes or fossil fuel cars or coal fired utilities until things are invented to replace them.

Americans will recognize that the pie-in-the-sky horse poop being spread all over college campuses and in ghettos represent goals that are not achievable in the short or medium term. Long-term strategies that will stretch beyond the lives of Americans living today are where the real answers to pollution, global warming, poverty and conflict reside.

And what about the rest of the world? India and China account for about 1/3 of the carbon emissions in the world. If these countries don’t participate enthusiastically in Ocasio-Cortez’s plan (or any plan), the world will not become a less environmentally toxic place.

Radicals in the Democratic Party are denigrating centrists in their midst. No longer are compromise, capitalism, exceptionalism, innovation and plain old horse sense valued commodities. Liberals want to fight it out in the streets. The dreamers among us along with the downtrodden are not experienced or informed enough to lead America. And guess what? Most will eventually move towards the center, as they grow wiser.

The revolution taking pace in the Democratic Party is reminiscent of the 1960s with one important difference. Protestation of illegal wars and discrimination weren’t an attempt to change the values and dreams of Americans. Rather they forced our elected leaders to account for their blunders and disregard for all the things that have made this country great. Working with the system, long-term, is how America will be great again.

The impact of Trump in this dangerous imbroglio cannot be overstated. For a brief moment in history, a rebel convinced a lot of people that the establishment was detrimental to our nation. In many ways he was correct. Too long our allies were taking advantage of America’s generosity and altruism. Two bit terrorists and despots were given too much latitude. People are starving and dying. Trump got us back on the rails He exposed the underbelly of ineffective leadership. But now it’s time for him to move on.

The old perspective that you need to be radical in the primaries and centrist in the general election is a bad philosophy. We need leaders who are not looking to fight with other Americas. We need leaders who are more concerned about making America stronger, more empathetic, more innovative and more collaborative. We need to redirect our venom towards outsiders that want to kill us and destroy our way of life, not against our fellow Americans.

Call it what you like- centrism or moderation. We must elect a president who will make peace between Republicans and Democrats before he or she tries to make peace between Israelis and Palestinians or settle any other conflicts.

Declaring that you are a socialist is all the rage these days. Thirty plus Democratic candidates are saying they are influenced by it to some extent. Unfortunately most people and many politicians don’t understand the real goals of this ideology, and they use the terminology incorrectly.

Socialism has different connotations, some relatively bland and some extreme. The important thing to note is that socialist countries don’t have a sterling reputation for longevity or success. Voters should learn to appreciate the pros and cons of this type of government before the 2020 elections.

One definition of socialism follows. “Socialism is an economic theory of social organization that believes that the means of making, moving and trading wealth should be owned or controlled by the community as a whole. In Marxist theory, it is a transitional . . . [a] social state between capitalism and communism.” The government is involved in every aspect of socialistic societies. Members of these societies are totally dependent upon the entitlements granted by political leadership.

The difference between capitalism and socialism is that capitalism encourages innovation and individual achievement, while socialism promotes equality and fairness at the expense of exceptionalism.

In a communist society the working class owns everything, and everyone works towards the same communal goals. Supposedly there are no wealthy or poor people. Nothing is obtained by working overtime or more than what is required. Communism frequently results in low production, mass poverty and limited advancement. Typically communist regimes are totalitarian.

Capitalism is the opposite of communism and socialism, where limitations don’t exist and reward comes to those who perform. In capitalistic societies, owners are allowed to reap the benefits of excess production, and competition occurs naturally, which fosters advancement. Capitalism tends to create a sharp divide between the most ambitious and hard working citizens and everyone else. Usually this results in a divide between the wealthiest and poorest citizens.

The trend in the Democratic Party is leftward towards socialism. It’s a potentially dangerous phenomenon if it goes too far. Yet the minimization of the gap between the affluent and the middle class is a noble objective.

Problems arise when politicians cannot agree how to achieve income equality. Socialists have no qualms with burdensome taxation on the rich, which in effect transfers wealth from one group to another. This tactic is anathema to conservatives.

The populist approach has appeal to a growing number of Americans because raising taxes will not affect them personally even as it weighs heavily on the largest wage earners in the country.

Capitalists would say it’s good when ambitious and hard-working people move ahead of their peers. Who really wants to work in a society that doesn’t reward innovation and sweat? Socialists denigrate this perspective and say that inequality is inevitable with capitalism. It is evil, even if advancement is a function of job performance and effort.

As an example let’s consider health care. Liberals are clamoring for universal, one-payer (government) health care, a noble objective with certain provisos. The most important consideration is affordability. Can our nation afford to give every citizen free, efficient and quality health services? The simple answer is no.

The current system, which supports needy people, retired citizens and all others not covered by employer plans, is effectively bankrupting the country. So any proposal to expand this entitlement is not feasible without massive adjustments to tax rates and cut back of other government spending.

The most popular adjustment proposed by progressives is higher tax rates on the most wealthy among us. Keep in mind affluent people represent only about 1% of the population. But uninformed liberals think the answer to all questions of affordability can be resolved by overtaxing this small group. One percent citizens would not be able to fund extraordinarily large deficits even if taxes were 100%.

So how can the nation make strides in affording health care to those who cannot afford it? For one thing, those that are in a position to pay for health care should continue to do so, including American companies who are now paying all or part of their employees health care costs. Why take these plans away from so many insured people and put it into the hands of government bureaucrats thereby creating greater deficits?

Liberals say that everybody should have equal access to the best health care, and it’s not fair for affluent people to have preferred access just because they can pay for it.

Not only do liberals want coverage for all, they want services to be equal. So if someone is prepared to pay for better services and doctors, it is irrelevant and would not be permitted.

The real answers lie in costly bureaucracy, gouging by pharmaceutical companies, cheating by patients and doctors, etc. There is so much fat and waste in the system, but liberals ignore it and want to raise taxes instead. The amount of savings from just eliminating cheaters is monumental. The RAND Corporation estimates that about $100 billion is lost each year from health care cheaters.

Another simple solution is to enable everybody to have insurance, and not revamp the entire health care insurance infrastructure. Obamacare was an attempt to do this. Rather than expanding Medicaid to more needy people, Obamacare demanded that every American be insured, even if they did not want coverage, with one-size fits all plans. In essence the government wanted to pay for unhealthy Americans by forcing other Americans to buy expensive insurance.

It’s going to be a long road to income inequality. S

But socialism is not the answer. Our country is built upon creativity, innovation, risk-taking and grit. America will be stronger if all classes of people are more prosperous as one group.

 

America is at a political crossroads. Emboldened by a failed effort by Republicans to clean up the Washington swamp, Democrats are gearing up to experiment with an anti-Trump ideology. It’s known as socialism.

The left should give credit to Bernie Sanders for planting this seed during the 2016 Election. Against all odds Sanders convinced many young voters that the philosophies of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Guevara and Trotsky were viable alternatives for America. Clinton operatives cheated Bernie, and Hillary was then shellacked by Trump.

In the end it was obvious that America wanted great change, but socialism was too extreme. Cooler heads prevailed as the American people realized that socialism has never been successful for an extended period of time. Every far-left leaning country has failed. Even China and Russia have moved towards western capitalism led by their despotic leaders.

It’s sad that so many younger Americans believe that economic prosperity and exceptionalism are not good for the country. The leaders of socialistic movements always target the affluent and the most successful members in society. Budding socialists in the US want to abscond the assets of the wealthy even though the vast numbers of prosperous individuals in this country were self-made. The belief that most 1%ers were gifted money from their mommies and daddies is total crap.

Have-nots lead the charge to over tax the haves. Why not? The problem with this philosophy is that over taxation dis-incentivizes entrepreneurship, innovation and leadership. Socialists cede their futures to a few leaders who eat like kings while their supplicants eat cake.

In the past, socialistic revolutions nobly and righteously brought down despotic monarchies that stole from the people. The Czars of Russia and the kings of France were noteworthy targets. They were corrupt and didn’t share economic prosperity with their people. Moreover the people were encouraged not to be great. They just followed or were punished.

France and Russia briefly, in historic terms, became socialistic countries. France went down the same path as the US and ultimately became a republic. Russia gave up its hard core socialistic ideals after Ronald Reagan effectively bankrupted America’s worst enemy. Now Russia pretends it is democratic, led by a man who dreams of returning Russia to its glory days. Although Putin leads with an iron hand, he is wary of the desire of his people to participate in the selection of its leaders, but it’s a sham.

In recent days a lengthy conga line of Democrats have been blathering about the benefits of socialism. They want to deconstruct the banking system, which is critical to any successful economy. They want to provide free health care to everyone and eviscerate medical coverage provided by corporations. They want to give students free college education. They want to have open borders and believe that illegal immigrants somehow will make America greater. They want to dismantle the immigration protection provided by ICE. They want police to have less power and authority to fight crime. They want convicted felons to serve less time for heinous crimes and to have the right to vote. They want to spend less on defense of our country.

The 64 thousand dollar question is— How the hell is the US going to pay for all these benefits, entitlements and giveaways? The left says they are going to tax affluent people up to 70% (now that’s a unique idea). If any of these politicians knew how to add, they would realize that there is no tax rate that can pay for the things they want to do.

The platitudes and false hopes being spread by liberals are intoxicating to many who suffer every day trying to make ends meet. But there is no elixir to fix the problems. Americans must work hard to become educated, find good jobs and take care of their families. Every person in the country should have a realistic shot at the American dream. Everyone should have a rewarding life filled with challenges and successes.

In the meantime Americans must be secure in the face of foreign and economic issues, illegal immigration, domestic crime and global pollution. Capitalism and hard work can make this happen.

In two years Americans will go to the polls to vote. I recommend leaders selected be experienced, pragmatic, empathetic and truthful. These four metrics will eliminate many of the current leaders we have and the new flock that is trying to bamboozle America.