Karl Marx is often portrayed as the hero of the masses.  After all, he believed in the creation of a “worker’s paradise” following the temporary reign of the “vanguard of the proletariat” — that small, highly educated, elite group that would rule in the interests of the workers until such time as they were capable of ruling for themselves.  In Russia, that was 73 years and counting.

Wherever a Marxist revolution has taken place, that “vanguard” has decided that its reign should be permanent and in its own interests.  Communist elites enslave workers just as the Democratic Party does in cities like Baltimore and Chicago.  In communist states like the Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China, North Korea, and communist Cuba and Venezuela, small bands of communists seized power but refused to cede it.  When the people protest, as they are now doing in Cuba, they are met with force, hauled off, and imprisoned or shot.

Communists pretend they are the wave of the future.  Actually, they are a throwback to the outdated system of absolutist monarchy that was abolished in most of Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries.  Marx was not a brilliant thinker — he was a stubborn fool who turned his back on democratic capitalism, the most successful and humane system in history.  That’s why he found a following in backwaters like czarist Russia and post-imperial China.  Communism has never appealed to those with deep-seated democratic traditions because they recognize its authoritarian nature and its threat to freedom.

Not ’til now, anyway.

Now the Democratic Party has been seized by self-proclaimed Marxists who plan to establish a permanent Marxist state in America.  Democrats believe they must move quickly before the midterm elections in order to pass controversial legislation granting them a permanent advantage in elections (HR-1) and enlarging their base (American Family Plan).  Once these partisan bills are passed, the real takeover begins with vast new taxes and regulations in the name of climate change, immigration “reform,” business reform, minimum global taxation, race reparations, and a thousand other cuts designed to transform America into a Marxist economy.

This economy would be run, permanently, by professional politicians — the same sort Biden has assembled for his first term.  Antony Blinken as secretary of state, Janet Yellen at Treasury, Merrick Garland as attorney general, Deb Haaland (former chair of the New Mexico Democratic Party) as interior secretary, Marty Walsh as labor secretary, Xavier Becerra as HHS secretary, Jennifer Granholm as energy secretary — all of them came directly out of political office, and all share the same vision of expanding the size and power of government.  This is doubly so for his V.P., Harris, who knows as much about rural America as Nancy Pelosi does.

It’s not just Biden’s progressive appointments that are troubling — it’s his cagey, secretive manner of instating Marxism.  Biden pretends to be “Joe Sixpack,” but he has never worked for any length of time outside government, and he displays contempt for those who do, even to the point of challenging them to fight or do push-ups.  He is the least transparent of presidents, refusing to answer questions as if he is above having to do so.  No questions on the border crisis, no questions on pipelines, no questions on Afghanistan, no questions on anything except “playing ball” — and that answer showed what he thinks about the involvement of ordinary Americans in government.  Just shut up and watch the game. 

Biden has amassed and spent millions on the backs of ordinary Americans.  According to a Forbes estimate, Biden was spending $2,000 a day on personal expenses during the four years he was out of office — not exactly an Average Joe budget.  And Biden’s declared net worth of $8 million does not accord with reports of payments from foreign governments, money that may be held in the names of family members.

Other Democrats live like royalty as well. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and her husband have a reported net worth of over $1 billion.  Nancy Pelosi’s net worth (with her husband) is $115 million, while the richest U.S. senator is Democrat Mark Warner ($214 million).  The Clintons, who claimed to have left the White House “without a nickel,” now have a net worth of $120 million.

All of these Democrats claim to be working for “the poor,” but the poor don’t get rich under their rule — they do.  And none of these rich leftists has made large charitable contributions to benefit American working people directly.  The Clinton Foundation, for example, has been described as “a complex organization that does a variety of charitable activities,” which include funding the Clinton Presidential Center in Arkansas and health care in Africa and Asia.  What about ordinary people in Oklahoma and West Virginia?  Those less glamorous, and less politically rewarding, needs are never addressed, maybe because progressives don’t really care about Oklahoma and West Virginia and the rest of heartland America.  

At its heart, Marxism is an expression of the most primitive of human instincts — the desire to enslave others so as to establish one’s own security and superiority.  There are countless examples of dictatorial rulers who have sacrificed their own people in this way.  From Tiberius and Caligula in ancient Rome to Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and Mao, absolute power always sacrifices ordinary people — all the more easily when the brutality is masked by promises of a worker’s paradise.

But now we have promises of a worker’s paradise in America under the name of the “American Family Plan” and a deceptively titled Infrastructure Plan.  Marxism always leads to a greater concentration of power in the elite and enslavement for the masses.  Biden’s proposed $6 trillion in emergency spending and matching $6-trillion annual budget, along with his recently announced proposals to “rein in” businesses, is an enormous step toward socialism.

America is becoming less free under a president who can’t help but express his contempt for the American people — no matter how strictly his handlers prevent him from speaking off-script.  Contempt for ordinary people is not just the by-product of left-wing politics — it is the underlying motive of Marxism.  Marxists aspire to separate themselves from the people and to exploit them for their own benefit.  This explains the string of ugly gaffes — from Obama’s “guns and bibles” to Harris’s belittling of “rural America” — that reveal just what liberals think of heartland America.

What’s frightening is that Marxists don’t just feel contempt for ordinary people; they want to enslave and, if necessary, kill them.  Every American should study the record of Lenin, Stalin, and Mao and realize that communism can happen here.  In fact, it is happening, and it’s far from certain that it can be stopped, even by the millions of patriots who voted for Trump. 

Jeffrey Folks is the author of many books and articles on American culture including Heartland of the Imagination (2011).

The failure to prosecute George Floyd rioters and looters has created for blacks a form of “squatter’s rights” to loot stores. San Francisco has an even more insane government than Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago and New York. In San Francisco children of the criminal class become District Attorney. San Francisco’s District Attorney is Chesa Boudin, whose parents were members of the violent Weather Underground and were convicted of murdering two police officers and a security guard. Boudin was raised by other members of the violent group.

Chesa protects black thieves by treating thefts that don’t exceed $950 as misdemeanors, not subject to meaningful punishment. As long as the blacks add up the prices correctly, they can walk off with the goods.

The thefts have caused Walgreens to close 17 of its stores in the San Francisco area. San Francisco stores, such as Neiman Marcus close at 6pm due to looting. The looting has also caused Target to limit business hours. GAP in Union Square has closed. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/san-francisco-looters-neiman-marcus-california

The movie “Escape from New York” is going to resonate in every Blue City.

America, once a proud nation, now a crime-ridden, perverted Tower of Babel, is experiencing the simultaneous rise in crime and perversion. Beastiality advocates are the latest “marginalized” group to demand their rights. Zoophiles, as they call themselves, demand to join the LGTBQ+ movement and become a member of Pride. https://www.rt.com/op-ed/528430-zoophiles-embraced-pride-lgbtq/

Some years ago I predicted that once homosexuals ceased to be perverts and became instead protected members of a marginalized community, every perversion would become normalized. People who have sex with animals and with children are the only two perversions left, and they are now demanding the same acceptance as homosexuals, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered, and whatever else. Given the present mindset, their demands cannot be resisted. Their human rights are being violated just as were homosexuals’. Homosexuality, once a blackmailable offense, is today no barrier to a top secret security clearance. Beastiality and pedeophilia will also lose their status as perversions.

The Western World is everywhere in decline. It leads only in perversion, not in science, technology, economic growth, or moral leadership. Many countries–Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, Libya, Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia–experience the West as an economic, political, and moral blight. The oncoming collapse of the West will be blamed on the wrong reasons, but it will nevertheless be regarded with relief from the rest of the world.

National unity has been destroyed. Instead of divided North and South, the US is divided Red and Blue. Demonized white Americans are yet to comprehend their danger as objects of hate. If they attempt to organize, the organization will be declared “white supremacist.” The FBI will infiltrate and work with extreme members or its own agents to create an incident that will be used to outlaw the organization as “domestic terrorist,” which will foreclose any further organization. Unable to come together, white Americans will be left isolated or in small groups. If voting still matters, white Americans will encounter obstacles or the election outcomes will simply be programmed into the digital voting machines. Demonized and powerless white Americans will be victims of the hatred that has been orchestrated against them.

“We are fast approaching the stage of ultimate inversion: The stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission.” (Ayn Rand)

That was, and still is, the COVID-19 era. Many worse — and far worse — are upon us. Because the precedent has been established … and the resistance almost nonexistent.

The tyrants have noticed. We are there, where Ayn Rand once said we were heading. It’s so, so sad. And unnecessary.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason