“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This statement is often quoted when events do not happen the way people would like them to. It comes from George Santayana’s seminal work, The Life of Reason, published in 1905. This quote fits neatly with, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” This quote has been attributed to Albert Einstein, but research shows that the earliest mention appeared in an article written about Alcoholics Anonymous in 1981. Both quotes fit the current state of the Democratic Party and the rise of the Democratic Socialists of America.
The Democratic Party has always leaned left. Always. Right now, it is leaning so far left that it's about to fall over, but Democrats appear to be in serious denial. Denying the problem will not make it go away; it will just get worse. There are plenty of far-left people claiming to be Democrats who are waiting to usher in a new era of socialism. The Democrats have flirted with socialism more than a couple of times. The Republicans have flirted with progressivism to the point that an entire section of U.S. history is titled the Progressive Era, a time period from 1890 to 1920. Even President Teddy Roosevelt was involved in the creation of the Progressive Party in 1912.
Here’s the thing: socialists and progressives have the same basic idea. They want everyone to have food to eat, a place to live, and for no one to be poor. How they achieve that is where socialists and progressives differ. Progressives want to reform capitalism so that it works for everyone. Socialists want to get rid of capitalism because they believe capitalism is what causes the problems in the first place. If you look back into the past, you will discover that progressivism has had more success than socialism. Progressives have had more people elected to federal, state, and local offices, but they’ve never captured the presidency, and they don’t stay in those elected offices very long. Over 1,000 socialists were elected to office in the early 1900s, including two members of Congress and roughly 130 mayors. Since then, modern-day numbers range from 160 elected officials to 250 elected officials, with Bernie Sanders the only avowed socialist in Congress. There are representatives who claim to be socialists until reelection time comes; then they’re usually Democrats.
Between 1912 and 1919, the Progressive Party elected a number of officials to federal, state, and local offices, including 13 U.S. representatives, one U.S. senator, two governors, one lieutenant governor, one state representative, one state treasurer, and one mayor. They were largely gone by 1919, either leaving office on their own or being voted out.The Progressive Party rose again in various forms in 1924, 1948, 1952, and 1954. It was generally less and less successful each time the party ran in an election. By 1954, the Progressive Party was essentially done. It did not win any federal, state, or local elections that I could find. The best they could do was come in second place in California for one seat in the U.S. Senate.
There is no comprehensive list of Socialist officeholders in the U.S. for the last 100 years. There aren’t many of them, so they are scattered across the country. Socialism sounds really good but, in reality, it tends to attract the young, who have no life experience, and some of the poor.
If the Democratic Socialists of America look familiar, it’s because their ideas aren’t new. The U.S. has faced progressivism and socialism many times before. There are always people gullible enough to believe what critics describe as empty promises. Cough. Jessica Tarlov. Cough.
Why? Tyrus, on Gutfeld!, said it best: “Why should I work, when I can take it from someone else?” Lots of people still believe they can get something for nothing, which explains why one of the largest cities in the U.S. elected a nepo baby with zero experience in anything as mayor.
Every time socialism comes back, it fails miserably. Want an example? Look at any government agency in the U.S.; they are rife with corruption, wasteful spending, and blazing incompetence. Name one government agency that is easy to use, doesn’t cost a fortune, and makes people want to use it.
What we have in the U.S. is a weird cross between progressivism and socialism. We have a good idea: people should be able to go to a doctor without going broke (progressivism), but then we add in the government (socialism), which mucks up the whole system and we wind up with the disaster that Medicare is today. Once the government steps in to pay the bills, costs skyrocket, care goes way down, and a vicious circle begins.
Don’t believe me? Back in 1921, President Warren Harding, a Republican, appointed a man named Charles Forbes to the newly created Veterans Bureau, the forerunner of the modern-day Veterans Administration. Forbes led the Bureau for two years before resigning under a cloud of fraud, bribery, and embezzlement. He embezzled over two million dollars in his short time as head of the Veterans Bureau. His tenure was so bad that President Harding summoned him to the White House in January of 1923 and demanded his resignation on the spot. Depending on which story you hear, Harding was so furious that he either almost threw Forbes out a second-story window or grabbed him by the throat and called him a double-crossing bastard.
There was a good idea: take care of the veterans who had sacrificed. Then the government got involved, and everything went rapidly downhill. Forbes spent twenty months in Leavenworth federal prison and was fined $10,000 upon being convicted of defrauding the federal government. Whether Republican or Democrat, they are all susceptible to the easy money available through the government.
What can be done to keep the socialists away from the levers of power? VOTE! It is that simple and that hard. The DSA has done very well in places with low voter turnout. The voter turnout in Colorado, where the party beat the incumbent in the most recent primary, was 36.2% of registered voters. According to Denver7, a local TV station, that’s the highest turnout since 2018. Thirty-six percent is considered high! This is why socialists win. People don’t vote. This is how AOC got into office. The ten-term incumbent got lazy and figured he’d win “just because.” He didn’t, and now we’re stuck with the bartender from New York City.
To keep people like AOC from power, all people have to do is vote. That’s it. Please don’t get discouraged. It is far easier to win a primary with a small group of people who like what you have to say. It is far harder to convince an entire section of a state or the entire state to vote for you.
My grandmother was 25 and married before she could vote legally because of the 19th Amendment. The year I was born, the 26th Amendment which lowered the voting age to 18, was ratified because too many young men from the U.S. were dying in Vietnam. Do not squander what so many people have died for. If you choose not to vote because you don’t think it matters anymore, that’s your business but don’t complain about how terrible the government is. You’re not part of the solution, so, keep your opinions to yourself.
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