By Dennis Hicks, Hamilton
Fifty-one percent of millennials prefer either socialism or communism over free-market capitalism, according to a recent survey. That explains the rapid growth of YDSA (Young Democratic Socialists of America) chapters in our public schools.
YDSA is an outreach into American high schools and colleges by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the same group that recently surrounded Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen in a restaurant and forced her, and her security detail, to flee. DSA members call one another, “comrades.”
DSA has been much in the news lately since the surprise upset victory in New York of one of their own. A 28-year-old community organizer, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, won a stunning primary election victory over the 20-year Democratic leader, Joe Crowley. Not to be outdone, Montana’s recent primary election saw two more DSA candidates win elections: Amelia Marques for Montana House District 52 and Jade Bahr for House District 50. Both Marques and Bahr are avowed democratic socialists associated with Montana DSA.
DSA chapters are growing nationwide, including in Montana. “DSA is on the move in Montana” (from Montana DSA’s Facebook page). Currently, there are DSA chapters in Billings, Missoula, Bozeman, Glacier, and Helena. They are reaching out to public school students in Montana to establish new YDSA chapters. Their strategy makes sense. The democratic socialism movement is the child of public education in America: the ideologies of socialism have been largely adopted by our public education system without opposition.
DSA temporarily aligns itself with the political platforms of Bernie Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, but that will change; they aim to transform American governance into socialism. Following are some recent enlightening DSA quotations:
• “Our north star is totally transforming the system, even though our immediate vision and our immediate political program is (sic) similar to Bernie Sanders’.”— Maria Svart, National Director of the Democratic Socialists of America.
• Free health care — “Medicare for All is such a no-brainer … (although unfortunately some of our Montana Democratic candidates will have to be brought around)” — Montana DSA.
• LGBTQ endorsement — [DSA’s] “LGBTQ Victory Fund works to change the face and voice of America’s politics and achieve equality for LGBTQ Americans by increasing the number of openly LGBTQ officials at all levels of government.” — Amelia Marques for Montana HD52 (an avowed transgender and democratic socialist) — Montana DSA, June 19, 2018.
• Oppose free-market economy through class warfare — “We believe that the capitalist system is the root problem, and democratic socialism is the solution” — Montana DSA, January 12, 2018.
“Capitalism must ultimately be replaced with socialism” — Bozeman DSA, May 15, 2018.
“Democratic Socialists believe in socialism; social (worker) ownership of the means of production” — Bozeman DSA, May 15, 2018.
“Capitalism forces all of us to be wage slaves. That’s why capitalism must be replaced by democratic socialism, so that we can all be free” — Montana DSA, June 18, 2018.
“Capitalist addiction to oil, profits, and power is limitless. Until we overpower them!” — Montana DSA, June 12, 2018.
“The 28-year-old socialist [Ocasio-Cortez] relentlessly characterizes politics as a struggle between working people and unaccountable, corporate interests. It can work in Montana, too” — Helena DSA, July 20, 2018.
• Opposed to the Democratic Party leadership — “Corporate Democrats are now actively trying to save their party from us, afraid that our ideas are actually popular!” — Montana DSA, July 27, 2018.
“Building independent political power is necessary to forcing establishment Democratic politicians out of office” — Montana DSA, June 12, 2018.
“If income and wealth ‘inequality … develop into the kind of cleavage issue that tore the Whigs in two, and a new umbrella party will rise while an old party falls,’ then we could have the party we want. Those democratic socialists that choose to work in the Democratic Party should openly be sharpening the contradictions of a political party in a capitalist system (the Democratic Party) to hasten that cleavage” — Helena DSA, February 28, 2018.
Like Bernie Sanders, Montana DSA’s advocate expanding union membership, free college education, free health-care, open borders, abolishing ICE, and impeaching Trump. A utopian fantasy that, to the hopelessly ignorant, seems superior to the proven principles that produced American exceptionalism.
In a speech in Scotland in 1948, Winston Churchill famously said, “Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.” Astonishing ignorance is the hallmark of the emerging DSA movement. They are ignorant of history: Socialism has failed every time it’s tried. They are ignorant of the free-market economic principles of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” that lifts the poor out of poverty every time it’s tried. They are ignorant of the limits imposed on the purposes and scope of government authority under Natural Law. They are ignorant of the vital role public and private virtue have in producing American exceptionalism. These essential truths are seldom taught in our public schools today. DSA’s is the worst kind of ignorance: they don’t know what they don’t know.
We have done a miserable job of passing the fundamental principles of freedom to the succeeding generations, and we’re running out of time to remedy that failure.