The increasing popularity of socialism in America is frightening. When candidates like Francesca Hong speak of seizing the wealth of the rich, they are speaking of seizing what in most cases took a lifetime of hard work to amass. Thankfully, the people of Wisconsin had the good sense to defeat her, but only by a small margin. Others have been more successful, and when they promise free groceries, free housing, free college tuition, free transportation, Medicare for all, and the rest, they are pandering to the worst impulse of parasitism, which goes right along with envy of the rich.
As long as socialism attracted only a small number of voters, it didn’t matter. But now nearly half of young people in America believe in socialism, and millions of their elders, who should know better, agree with them. It is frightening because it reminds one of the rise of Hitler and the National Socialists in Germany — and the National Socialists were Socialists. They and their predecessors in Italy believed that “the State is all, the individual nothing,” and so do American socialists today.
It’s for this reason — the State Is All — that socialists everywhere attempt to eliminate the practice of religion and to outlaw its public expression, as socialists today do in our public schools and universities. All of their actions are rooted in a single motive: the creation of a centralized, all-powerful State, presumably with themselves in charge. Though given the predatory nature of socialist politics, those who at first contribute to the movement soon become its victims, as happened in the French Revolution with the Jabobins turning against the Dantonists and other factions, in the Soviet Union with Stalin’s show trials executing thousands of his former followers, and in Maoist China with Mao killing as many as 80 million of his own people and even his followers.
It’s an irony that American socialists accuse Donald Trump of being a “Nazi” when in fact they themselves are much closer to being so. In many, many respects, the socialist platform echoes the promises and actions of National Socialism in Germany — inevitably, because the fundamental underlying motivation is the same: all power to the State.
Zohran Mamdani and other socialists in office or running for office this year speak of seizing private wealth and turning it over to the State, either through direct confiscation or through wealth taxes. They want a host of new state-run benefits, which would take the place of and eliminate private businesses. Anyone working in the medical profession should be very concerned about the socialists’ key policy position of Medicare for All, which means that all those in the medical profession would be working for the State, for whatever the state wishes to pay them. Since there is not enough money to pay for this promise, it’s inevitable that medical salaries would be reduced and working hours increased.
The crux of American socialism is their promise to “tax the rich.” This is the glue that holds socialist thinking together, and it is working today because it provides a plausible (but not realistic) means of paying for their many new benefits, and it appeals to the anger and resentment of those who feel they do not have enough, especially as the booming stock market creates mega-billionaires and even trillionaires, many of whom do nothing to disguise their wealth.
The shadow of National Socialism hangs over today’s socialists. Hitler used the Jews as pawns in his appeal to the masses of Germans who were poor, out of work, hungry, and forgotten. Suddenly, he offered them hope — and a scapegoat to explain their own failure. He also spoke implicitly of seizing the wealth of what was viewed at the time as a wealthy class of Germans and promising to employ it for the benefit of the German people at large. But despite all the promises, what fascism brought to the German people was death and suffering, and that is what the promises of today’s socialists will bring to Americans if we allow it.
There is a remarkable similarity between the way Hitler spoke of “the Jews” and the way America’s young socialists speak of “the rich” (and also of “the Jews”). Their motives are the same. Envy is a powerful emotion, and it drives voters to the polls. If one goes back and substitutes the phrase “the rich” for “the Jews” in Hitler’s speeches (often with phrases like “Jewish financiers” or “international Jewish financiers”), those insanely angry speeches sound very much like the anger coming out of our homegrown socialists. Certainly, the political methodology is precisely the same. The vitriol in the speech of some members of the Squad and others on the left is shocking in part because it echoes the strident language and manic delivery of socialists from Lenin to Fidel Castro and beyond. Likewise, though it is often overlooked, Hitler was aggressively anti-capitalism and anti-Christianity. As he wrote, “capitalism as a whole will now be destroyed.” He added elsewhere that “the heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity.”
It’s important to note than nearly all of the socialist candidates now running for office in America have spoken out against Israel and engaged in various forms of antisemitism, and perhaps for the same reason. Jewish people are too often caricatured as “the rich,” and they can become the scapegoat of popular envy here, just as they were in Nazi Germany. Verbal and physical attacks on Jews have become far more common, spurred by those who should know better, or who do know better but employ the Jews as political pawns. The fact is that American socialists today have allowed their movement to become infected with the disease of antisemitism, and they refuse to dissociate themselves from it.
Hitler never garnered more than about one third of the popular vote, and he never held an absolute majority in the Reichstag until he was appointed chancellor and gained absolute power. Socialists in America may never win a majority in a national election, but like the National Socialists, they are impassioned and determined to take control of our country. If they do, it will not just be billionaires who suffer. None of them can actually define “the rich,” because in their minds, “the rich” constitute everyone who owns any property, any business, any investments, anything, and all of that is fair game for the State.
Hitler published his manifesto, Mein Kampf, in 1925, and gradually amassed followers and seats in parliament. Almost exactly 100 years later, we are witnessing the rise of our own version of national socialism. In 2024, Mamdani was elected Mayor of NYC. In 2026, Hong, Abdul El Sayed, and a host of other candidates are running or have run for higher offices, and some may get elected. From there it is only seven years to 2033, the dreadful anniversary of Hitler’s ascension to total power.
One can hope that will never happen here, but one must do more than hope. One must get out and vote, and encourage others to do so. One must speak out in an informed way about the danger we now face. One must never allow socialism to seize power in America.
