by WorldTribune Staff, February 10, 2019

President Donald Trump said during his State of the Union address on Feb. 5 that America would “never be a socialist country.”

Democrats seem to think otherwise.

According to a Gallup poll from August 2018 Gallup, 57 percent of Democrats view socialism in a positive light, and 47 percent saw capitalism as a negative.

“For the first time in Gallup’s measurement over the past decade, Democrats have a more positive image of socialism than they do of capitalism,” Gallup said at the time.

A September 2018 BuzzFeed News and Maru/Blue online survey of 1,006 randomly selected 22- to 37-year-olds found 18 percent self-identified as a democratic socialist and 8 percent as a socialist, and 28 percent said they’d be either “much more likely” or “a little more likely” to vote for a socialist political candidate.

Since 2016, the Democratic Socialists of America party went from 7,000 to a reported 50,000 members.

Writing for The Washington Times on Feb. 7, columnist Cheryl Chumley said Trump deserves “kudos … for standing strong against socialism. But he can’t do it alone.”

Only by acknowledging that America can become a socialist nation can Americans “protect against it,” Chumley wrote.

“How else to explain the rise of open socialists in Congress – the embrace of socialism among millennials – the growing acceptance of this form of government as an alternative to America’s democratic-republic? These things do not happen in a bubble. They’re warnings of where America is headed.”

Many observers pointed to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal (GND) as one of those warnings – a big one.

The deal’s authors say it requires a “massive transformation of our society” and also needs some “clear goals and a timeline.” That timeline is reportedly ten years.

David Harsanyi, a senior editor at The Federalist, noted some of the goals of the socialist Democrat’s proposal:

• Ban affordable energy. GND calls for the elimination of all fossil fuel energy production, the lifeblood of American industry and life, which includes not only all oil but also natural gas — one of the cheapest sources of American energy, and one of the reasons the United States has been able to lead the world in carbon-emissions reduction.
• Eliminate nuclear energy. The GND also calls for eliminating all nuclear power, one of the only productive and somewhat affordable “clean” energy sources available to us, in 11 years. This move would purge around 20 percent of American energy generation so you can rely on intermittent wind for your energy needs.
• Eliminate 99 percent of cars. To be fair, under the GND, everyone will need to retrofit their cars with Flintstones-style foot holes or pedals for cycling. The authors state that the GND would like to replace every “combustion-engine vehicle” — trucks, airplanes, boats, and 99 percent of cars — within ten years. Charging stations for electric vehicles will be built “everywhere,” though how power plants will provide the energy needed to charge them is a mystery.
• Gut and rebuild every building in America. Markey and Cortez want to “retrofit every building in America” with “state of the art energy efficiency.” Repeat, “every building in America.” That includes every home, factory, and apartment building, which will all need, for starters, to have their entire working heating and cooling systems ripped out and replaced with…well, with whatever technology Democrats are going invent in their committee hearings.
• Eliminate air travel. GND calls for building out “highspeed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary.” Good luck Hawaii! California’s high-speed boondoggle is already in $100 billion dollars of debt, and looks to be one of the state’s biggest fiscal disasters ever. Amtrak runs billions of dollars in the red (though, as we’ll see, trains that run on fossil fuels will also be phased out). Imagine growing that business model out to every state in America?
• A government-guaranteed job. The bill promises the United States government will provide every single American with a job that includes a “family-sustaining wage, family and medical leave, vacations, and a pension.” You can imagine that those left in the private sector would be funding these through some unspecified “massive” taxation. On the bright side, when you’re foraging for food, your savings will be worthless.
• Free education for life. GND promises free college or trade schools for every American.
• A salubrious diet. The GND promises the government will provide “healthy food” to every American (because there are no beans or lettuce in your local supermarket).
• A house. The GND promises that the government will provide, “safe, affordable, adequate housing” for every American citizen.
• Free money. The GND aims to provide – not making this up – “economic security” for all who are “unable or unwilling” to work. Just to reiterate: if you’re unwilling to work, the rest of us will have your back.
• Bonus insanity: Ban meat. Ocasio-Cortez admits that we can’t get zero emissions in 10 years “because we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast.” The only way to get rid of farting cows is to get rid of beef.

Ocasio-Cortez and the GND’s Senate champion, Massachusetts Democrat Ed Markey “claim that 92 percent of Democrats and 64 percent of Republicans support the Green New Deal. I’m not sure where that number is derived. But ask them again when government agents come to take out their water heater,” Harsanyi wrote.

Chumley wrote that “It’s going to take a strong border and committed citizenry to keep this country on a constitutional track. America is only one generation away from socialism. And if truth be told, if these polls and surveys and political trends are taken with the seriousness they deserve, socialism in its softest form – the smiley-face giveaways, the social justice bumper stickers – is already here.

“Take heed: When the money runs out, it’s always the fisted, forced and enforced version that comes next.”

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  Green New Deal, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Sen. Ed Markey, socialism, State of the Union, Why Socialist America can happen; A closer look at the Green New Deal, WorldTribune.com