News Flash: Most Republicans Are Socialists, Too

First, neither ordinary people nor public opinion leaders understand what socialism is, although there is a lot of literature on this topic.  However, there are very few academics whose works correctly describe the essence of socialism.  Their lonely voices drown in the stream of misconceptions about the subject.

The first misapprehension is that socialism is solely equated with Marxism and Marx’s materialist philosophical concepts.  The materialist definition of socialism posits communal ownership of the means of production, collective management, and distribution of wealth.  However, socialism is a generic notion, and Marxism is a theory of communism, the particular and extreme current of socialism.  Therefore, Marxism is undoubtedly socialistic, but it does not encompass the whole of socialism.  The materialist understanding of socialism missed a significant subject of collectivization: the individual himself.  Since the time of Plato, it has been known that socialism presupposes the subordination of the individual to the collective, which means the construction of a hierarchical society in which the elites rule the state and the commoners obey meekly.

History shows that the collectivization of consciousness is even more critical than the socialization of property.  It is no wonder that such socialist trends as fascism, national socialism, and reformism used the collectivization of consciousness as the main path to socialism.  But even the theory of communism proposed the dictatorship of the proletariat, first for the violent expropriation of private property into the collective and then for the subordination of the entire population to communist ideology.  Therefore, the definition of socialism must surpass the boundary of its materialist understanding and include ideas and practices of anti-materialist, anti-positivist flavors of collectivist ideology.  Socialism must be understood as a set of artificial socioeconomic systems characterized by varying degrees of socialization of property, the subjugation of individual consciousness, and a scale of wealth redistribution imposed on society by revolutionary or ruling elites without majority consent.

This definition united the collectivist ideology into one, identifying three main paths to socialism and pointing out its unnatural essence and cunning way of implementation.  If we apply this formulation to the United States, it becomes clear that socialist traits have long and firm roots in our society.  The United States successfully fought world communism but overlooked evolutionary socialism at home because it focused on features similar to communism and ignored other socialism qualities.

Evolutionary socialism, AKA reformism, AKA social democracy, AKA democratic socialism, used the same main paths to socialism as fascism and national socialism: the collectivization of consciousness and wealth redistribution.  Note that neither of these doctrines called for outright expropriation of private property on the means of production.  The only difference is that fascism and national socialism used bold revolutionary steps in the societal transformation.  In contrast, evolutionary socialism, as the name implies, chose the gradual evolutionary path.  Evolutionary socialism was designed to be invisible and gradually worked within the framework of democratic institutions.  Not surprisingly, the Fabian Society logo, which organization, together with Bernstein, was the founder of evolutionary socialism, featured a turtle, symbolizing the slow transition to socialism.  Their original coat of arms was the wolf in sheep’s clothing, representing the preferred method of achieving a goal.

The poison of socialism has been injected continuously into the healthy body of American capitalism since the first part of the 20th century.  You may be surprised, but the obligatory minimum wage rate is socialism; the proportional taxation system is socialism; rampant unionization including law enforcement and government employees is socialism; even mandatory car insurance is socialism.  The list can go on for several pages.  Evolutionary socialism has been overlooked and has now penetrated all spheres of life.  Now we vividly see the dramatic changes in the educational system, which became the indoctrination machine; in media, which became a socialist propaganda wing; and in Hollywood, which became an adherent of Soviet socialist realism.

Evolutionary socialism eventually became the prevailing trend among the American left, as anarchism and communism are relatively marginal forces.  Democrats used them as a paramilitary wing to promote socialist ideas on their behalf using intimidation, protests, and riots.  Thus, Antifa bases its violent actions on the myth that fascism and Nazism are right-wing political philosophies closely associated with capitalism.  Black Lives Matter (BLM) uses a narrative of state racism and targeted police brutality against blacks as the moral justification for its frantic protests.

At a specific moment, the evolutionary socialist transformations, both in people’s minds and in the economy, can no longer be hidden behind beautiful phrases about empathy, equality, brotherhood, and internationalism, and the wolf will throw off the sheepskin before taking its decisive leap.  The leftists feel they have enough support in society to make a last-ditch effort to seize power forever.  They no longer hesitate to commit voter fraud, introduce censorship, conceal information, and physically attack dissidents.

The hidden evolutionary path is coming to an end, and Democrats have shown their real intentions.  Either the left is establishing socialism, or the American people will finally defeat them.  But here is the problem that brings us to the second explanation of the current struggle.  Socialists were able to bring in pieces of socialism and reform the country’s laws because the U.S. has lacked a robust right-wing party.  It could be argued that the Republican Party is the right, but their position on the right is simply relative to that of the Democrats.  Across the political spectrum, Republicans are center-left at best.  They could neither recognize nor roll back the socialist transformation in American society.  If they were genuinely right, we would not be fighting socialism in the early 21st century.

The actual right party is a party that advocates for individual and economic freedom, supports the American constitution, and recognizes American exceptionalism.  Perhaps the American people still hold to these ideas, but the Republican Party does not reflect them in their deeds.  Moreover, leaders’ recent statements are astonishing.  Rubio said to Fox News’s Hannity, “I think the future of the Republican Party is as a multiethnic, multiracial, working-class party.”  Did he mean that the Republicans are racist, as the left claims?  Where does he get this leftist terminology: the working class, the proletariat?  It was Marx who divided society according to the place that people occupy in production.  His classification is meaningless outside his erroneous theory.  Yet GOP officials continue to use left-wing jargon instead of opposing the Democratic position and firmly defending individual and economic freedoms.

Thus, we have come to this point in American history because evolutionary socialism was overlooked, and there was no strong right-wing party that could recognize and reject socialist tendencies.  Since most Republican elites are not trustworthy right, but center-left, even if the Democrats lose this time, they will eventually get their way, as our bipartisan system has a predominantly left-wing gradient.  To stop socialist inclinations, the Republican Party must be transformed into at least a center-right party, or there should be a brand-new right-wing party.

Everyone should understand that if the socialist current of any flavor is given sufficient run time, all means of production will inevitably be socialized, and the individual will be coercively subjugated to the collective.  That is why democratic socialism is as dangerous as fascism or communism.