Posted on 07/26/2026 5:35:18 AM PDT by MtnClimber
That’s because socialism follows an inevitable trajectory. The real question is whether America can reject socialism before a bitter end comes our way.
As J.R. Dunn noted in his July 17th Members Weekly Newsletter (you should subscribe!) in an article titled “Targeting the Socialists,” America’s socialist and socialist-adjacent movements have emerged in four major waves since 1920. Today, we appear to be entering the fifth.
Let’s get one thing out of the way first: you say socialists, I say communists. Why? Because socialism has repeatedly demonstrated that it cannot sustain itself economically. Faced with one failure after another, socialist governments have historically responded by concentrating political power, restricting dissent usually violently, and expanding state control. That is, they start socialist (some private ownership) and end communist (the nationalization of all business and all power concentrated in the state).
In practice, socialism and communism often become different stages of the same process, all ending in enslavement. For this discussion, the distinction matters less than the ultimate destination.
This fifth wave differs from the previous four in one critical respect: it is no longer confined to the political fringe but is moving steadily into the mainstream across multiple geographic areas. Earlier socialist movements struggled to gain lasting influence outside activist circles, academia, and labor organizations, rarely penetrating America’s most influential institutions.
The current movement already possesses significant political power and has established itself within many of the institutions that shape how Americans learn, communicate, and govern. It has accumulated influence simultaneously in education, politics, parts of corporate America, activist organizations, and much of the media, where these institutions increasingly reinforce one another and normalize ideas that only a generation ago would have remained political nonstarters. That institutional foothold is what distinguishes this fifth wave from its predecessors—and what makes it potentially far
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
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How far will we fall before we remember the lessons of history?
The Soviets found, once they have demoralized a nation that it can take a century for that nation to recover.
“The real question is whether America can reject socialism before a bitter end comes our way.”
I doubt it. History shows us that revolutions come about because of a small, committed group of people, and a largely disengaged public.
I’m not sure why but for some reason, my four children seem to be OK. But they are ages 28, 26, 23, and 18 the 28th and 23 year-old are married with children. They both have homes. The 20 six-year-old isn’t married but does work for Schwab so has a good job 18 year-old is going to college in August.
I guess my point is their friends are really struggling. As not just one or two it’s multitude of them.
I just find if that’s the norm then I don’t know what the country is gonna do.
People can’t struggle forever. My kids just lucked out, but it seems many are not getting lucky at all.
We have the lesson of Venezuela which is quite recent. Socialism to Communism dragged a relatively affluent population into near universal extreme poverty with near famine conditions. With the capture of Maduro the current dictatress will hopefully take the Việt Nam example of Communist rule to heart and get off the backs of the people. Việt Nam is Communist in regards to its government organization but not its actual performance. I think of the government in Việt Nam as more like Enlightened Mafia. They are installing something like Disneyland all over the country and everyone is making money off the flood of foreign tourists. The cities look like New York with skyscrapers and without the street bums. Highways are being built rapidly to carry all the traffic that is growing exponentially. Their biggest problem is in keeping up with the growth of trucking and personal cars.
Envy is one helluva drug. It will get worse before it gets better I fear, unless we have one big national revival.
You have to be careful about making comparisons between today and Russia over a century ago. Lenin and his people took control of a country and people devastated and demoralized by the terrible effects of a war. The Romanovs also further sealed their tragic fate (and further put the Provisional Government in an impossible situation) with a generation’s worth of governance that resulted anemic industrialization and overall modernization of Russian economy and society as a whole.
Redo. Auto correct sucks!
I’m not sure why but for some reason, my four children seem to be OK. But they are ages 28, 26, 23, and 18. Our 28 and 23 year-old are married with children. They both have homes. The 26-year-old isn’t married but does work for Schwab so has a good job. 18 year-old is going to college in August.
I guess my point is their friends are really struggling. And not just one or two it’s multiples of them.
I just find if that’s the norm, then I don’t know what the country is gonna do.
People can’t struggle forever. My kids just lucked out, but it seems many young adults are not getting lucky at all.
We have a nation filled with Pride. Is that going stop the march towards death and destruction?
What I stated was the Soviet’s plan to defeat the US. Keep interpreting its history in the most condemnable way possible in order to demoralize the people enough to soften them up for communism.
It’s their general plan for all nations they conquered. The reason why it works is because the liberals will repeat it ad nauseum for free and create disciples for socialism.
“The question is not whether this fifth wave (of Socialism) will fail. History has already written that chapter.
The real question is how much of America’s prosperity and liberty we will sacrifice before enough Americans recognize the lessons history has repeatedly shown us.”
To me, an important point the article makes is that we’re heading in the wrong direction because the education system has failed. Totally preventable.
The curse of high intelligence is having to put up with morons.
Many companies don’t want to hire young people because they tend to be woke and lazy.
Citizens, businesses and money are mobile, and the comparative successes and failures of competing economic systems across the nation will be hopefully stark enough to continually remind the blue-state voting population of their mistakes. At least that's the optimist's viewpoint.
However, should socialism give way to communists in power at the national level, and the Constitutional protections fall one by one, at that point we have the option of secession and the seeds of civil war.
Churchill also said that if you vote in socialism you”ll have to shoot your way out.
ping
And meanwhile, obscene wealth and wildly indulgent spending on travel, weddings, and such pervades their ‘social’ media world. The demoralization doesn’t help.
That institutional foothold is what distinguishes this fifth wave from its predecessors—and what makes it potentially far more dangerous
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