There is no government anywhere in the world that even comes close to ensuring the opportunities for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that are enjoyed by the American people. If you need proof of this fact, listen to the 1.24 million people from 210 countries who traveled to the United States for the FIFA World Cup soccer tournament. They have been totally awestruck by the conveniences, comforts and unlimited freedom they have seen here. They are shouting all around the world about the bounties that are so engrained into our everyday experience we often don’t give them a second thought.
Our Founders took great care to craft a Government that would “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity” for all time, as eloquently stated in the Preamble to the Constitution. The newly independent first citizens of the United States, during their spirited debates over drafts of the Constitution, demanded written guarantees that would spell out what the government could not do. It was their fear of a strong centralized government, capable of stripping away individual liberties, that drove them to insist on the Bill of Rights, the first ten Amendments to the Constitution, before they would ratify the Constitution itself.
The First Amendment described five freedoms of the utmost importance to America’s Founders: freedom of religion, of speech, of the press, of assembly, and the right to petition the Government. As we celebrate our 250th year of independence from British rule, we have an imperfect, but enduring, Republic that has delivered more on its promises than our ancestors likely could have imagined.
Today, however, we face serious trouble from a growing threat from within. The political movement calling itself the Democratic Socialists of America has come out of the shadows and is winning Democratic primary elections across the country. By the end of June, Democratic Socialist backed candidates had won 35 primary elections, knocking out some long-term Democratic incumbents in the process. They make no attempt to hide their agenda. They want to completely restructure the government and economy, replicating a form of government that has failed everywhere it has been tried. They seek to eliminate private ownership of the “means of production,” transitioning utilities, major industries, and transportation from private ownership into public cooperatives. They would allow non-citizens to vote and unrestricted passage across our borders. Defunding police, abolishing ICE, and abolishing prisons are on the list along with Medicare for all, and abolishing the Electoral College. They want to vastly expand social welfare programs, dooming citizens to a life of dependence on the Government.
The Democratic Party is surrendering itself to these haters of the American way of life because it is leaderless, unprincipled, and has nothing to offer the American people. Their desperation to cling to power has them lying to themselves that this is just the next generation of political activists coming into their own. President Trump, always willing to lead, stands resolutely in opposition to this attempt to destroy how we live, correctly calling it Communism, and vowing to stop it in its tracks.
One of the hallmarks of American freedom is the debate of ideas. The challenge to our way of life being mounted by the Democratic Socialists will be defeated by the better ideas that have sustained us for 250 years. The dismal failure of the American media to function as a free press is the real greatest threat to freedom. The free press was regarded by our Founders as the ultimate safeguard of a democratic society. They understood that access to factual, independent information is critical to holding Government accountable. Alexander Hamilton, Founder and first Secretary of the Treasury under George Washington, described it this way: “The liberty of the press consists, in my idea, in publishing the truth, from good motives and for justifiable ends…”
Today, American media is politically biased and dishonest, making independent information much harder to access than it should be. The extreme liberalism of most of the media has it behaving like the public relations arm of the Democratic Party rather than the guardians of truth envisioned by our Founders. They are obsessed with contradicting everything President Trump says. The American people don’t have to go any further than the daily “news” cycle to experience the failure of the media and there is no more timely illustration than the superficial and inaccurate coverage of this Democratic Socialist attempt to remake our system of government. The media has been consumed with “correcting” Trump on his calling this movement Communism rather than producing the factual information the people need to evaluate what is happening here.
What would we learn from serious investigative journalists who were doing their job?
Who are the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)?
DSA is a political activist organization founded in the 1980’s. It claims over 120,000 members in all 50 states and, in 2021, published a Member Survey Report that exposes membership that is not even close to being representative of the American people. 64% are men and 10% call themselves “non-binary”. 32% claim the label LGBTQIA+.
85% of DSA members are White and 4% are Black. The median age is 33 and 60% live in urban areas. 21% of DSA members over age 24 who work are members of a union – most in teaching, political organizations and the public sector.
DSA members are highly educated. More than 80% have bachelor’s degrees and 35% have a masters, doctorate or other professional degree. 60% of DSA members are agnostic or atheist.
Though membership in the DSA is relatively small, they are successfully infiltrating the Democratic Party with their ideology. At the end of June, a national survey was conducted by The Economist/YouGov to test American sentiment about Socialism.
34% of Democrats identified Socialism as a better economic system than the 22% who chose Capitalism. 58% of the Democrats surveyed said they view Socialism favorably and 62% said they would vote for a Democratic Socialist for elected office. There is no question the influence of the DSA is on the rise in the Democratic Party and the vacuum created by the failure of the media to objectively inform the public makes people more vulnerable to being easily deceived and blindly led by empty promises that will never be realized.
What Qualifies the DSA candidates to Lead?
It doesn’t take much digging to unearth that many of the candidates who are winning Democratic primaries under the Democratic Socialist label have lived pampered, privileged lives, had their egos endlessly stroked, and, though many have never had a real job or achieved anything noteworthy, they see themselves as the next leaders of cities across the country and in Congress.
Candidates who won Democratic primaries as Democratic Socialists in the 2026 cycle primarily emerged from backgrounds in labor organizing, law, and community advocacy. A graduate student/barista (fancy name for coffee server) in Colorado, a union organizer and first term state Assemblywoman in New York, and a doctoral student and activist known for antiwar and social violence prevention at Columbia University are among the “leaders” winning as Democratic Socialists.
Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old who never had a real job and was raised in a privileged environment by wealthy parents, ran last year as a Democratic Socialist for Mayor of New York and won on promises to provide free buses, free childcare, city owned grocery stores, rent freezes, and a $30 minimum wage by 2030. He is a slick talker and, with no serious investigative journalists to press for specifics and expose these pipe dreams for what they are, this know nothing/do nothing is now responsible for a city with nearly 9 million residents and a $125 billion budget.
Candidates running as Democratic Socialists claim to be champions of the working class. Most of them are not even members of the working class. They don’t know enough to know what they don’t know, or to be embarrassed by the hubris of their candidacy. We will see more Mamdani’s rise to power as ill-informed masses gravitate to their promises of an easy life in the Government’s care while the media fawns over these “rising stars” rather than doing its job.
Capitalism, Socialism, Communism
A “free press” that doesn’t follow the truth wherever it leads, coupled with our own intellectual laziness, may pave a lethal path to our own destruction if we don’t wake up soon. The pseudo intellectuals who are waxing eloquently about Capitalism, Socialism, and Communism show us every day that they themselves do not understand the significant differences in how these economic and political philosophies dictate ownership of society’s resources and how wealth is distributed. Those who listen to them, do so at their own peril.
The most substantive differences between Capitalism, Socialism, and Communism are property ownership, market mechanics, and resource distribution.
Capitalism embraces private ownership of the “means of production” – factories, businesses and natural resources. Prices, wages and production decisions are determined by the free market. Supply and demand. Individuals and businesses retain profits from their labor and investment, which, by definition, results in economic inequality. This is a good thing; not a bad thing. The potential to profit from hard work drives competition and innovation, which is why the United States is the most productive and innovative nation in the world. While social safety nets are understood to be necessary for those who are truly in need, they are not intended to be a way of life. The real fun in living is in chasing dreams of unlimited possibilities.
Socialism and Communism share the same philosophical underpinnings on a continuum. Communism is often described as the ultimate theoretical goal of Socialism – a stateless, classless, moneyless society where resources are distributed to everyone based on need. Marxists (those who follow the teachings of political philosopher and economist Karl Marx, who was one of the most influential Socialist thinkers) often refer to Socialism as the first necessary phase on the way from Capitalism to Communism.
Socialism shuns private ownership in favor of state ownership of the means of production. (Mamdani’s city owned grocery stores are a first step). Central planning is the mechanism used to achieve economic equality and social welfare. The government manages production and regulates prices (Mamdani’s rent control is a first step). Societal wealth and resources are redistributed through taxes and social programs to reduce class divides and promote shared prosperity (Mamdani’s “tax the rich” plans to provide free childcare, free buses, and more).
In the transition from a capitalist to a socialist society, private property and small-scale private businesses can still exist but in communism, all private property and means of production are eliminated and the distribution of wealth is centrally controlled and based on “need”. A strong central government controls economic production and provides the basic necessities of food, housing, medical care, and education.
We are in a real battle to take our country back, and the Socialist agenda is an extreme threat to our freedom. People living under Socialist and Communist rule are deprived of the incentives to innovate and to excel, sources of great joy in the lives of free people. It is a dull and empty existence. We will have to be well informed and engaged to defeat this scourge, and we will do it despite the dishonesty and undermining of the American media. We would be wise to heed the words of John Adams, Founder and second President of the United States: “Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.” The results of Socialism have been consistent when it’s been tried – economic stagnation, widespread shortages of consumer goods and loss of personal freedom. Communism by any other name will destroy us just the same.
