Socialism is on the rise. A large percentage of the Democratic Party wants socialism. A Socialist made a strong showing in the presidential race in 2016 and a much-younger one managed to defeat the 4th-most powerful Democrat in the House. I find all of this terrifying.
Socialism means that the government either owns or controls "the means of production" which means most employers. It's a totalitarian philosophy where the government intrudes into every facet of your life.
"But wait", you say, "Scandinavian socialism" and "Democratic socialism!".
Ha!
Free college and centralized health care does not make a country socialist. That's just the bait. Scandinavian countries are basically capitalist and the socialists are insisting that capitalism is the cause of all of society's ills and needs to be eradicated. The Antifa movement calls itself "anti-fascist" but they are also anti-capitalist. What's more, the Scandinavian countries manage because they are small, homogeneous and xenophobic. They are the opposite of the racially (but not ideologically) diverse population the American socialists want.
As for the democratic part, socialists have a long history of being for democracy right up until they are in power. Then they change the rules to see that they never have to win an election again. They're already talking about how they'll do this. They lost two out of five presidential elections in the Electoral College so they want to abolish that. They've also noticed that the Senate gives as much power to small states as to large ones so they want to change that. They also noticed that members of the House of Representatives from small states represent fewer people than members from large states so they want to change that.
They want increased voting rights. If you're a convicted felon they want you to vote. They are even allowing non-citizens to vote in some municipal elections. They are also big on making it as easy as possible to vote (and as easy as possible to cheat).
They keep trying to change the rules for nominees to the Supreme Court. Since that hasn't worked, they are now floating ideas such as term limits or outright court packing.
They don't believe in individual freedoms, either, at least not the traditional ones. Freedom of speech has been under attack for years under the guise of "hate speech" where hate speech is anything they don't want to hear. If you only believe in protecting speech that you agree with then you support political censorship. And they really love that. For years, progressive speakers can say anything they want on campus but conservatives, even moderate ones, are protested as hate speech and have to provide expensive security. Recently that's gone a step further. Corporations are examined to see if the officers have the correct views and any deviation from the party line can result in the company being made unwelcome. This is an amazing guilt-by-association where the private opinions of one executive or board member taints an entire company.
Colleges have long been mono-cultures but now the tech giants are also embracing a far-left corporate culture and dissent is punished. During the 2016 election, someone wrote a pro-Trump message on the physical wall in the Facebook office and this was treated as vandalism. Only pro-Hillary messages were allowed. Google, Facebook and Twitter all have the reputation of being far quicker to punish conservatives than progressives.
And this is only getting worse. There have been a few recent incidents where Republicans have been equated with Nazis or Nazi-enablers. These didn't spring out of no-where, hundreds of miles apart. It's what the left is telling itself. After years of calling President Trump every name they can think of, they've gone on to do the same to the entire Republican Party.
Once you've outlawed hate speech and declared all conservatives to be white supremacists then you've shut down debate completely - which is the goal. I'm a conservative who believes in free speech and capitalism. If these socialists ever take power then I'll have to stay quiet or face the gulag.
And that's why they terrify me.
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