Growing up in New Jersey, I encountered many people like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Before there was AOC and Ilhan Omar there was Bela Abzug, Angela Davis, and Shirley Chisolm. Whether it’s radicals such as Noam Chomsky, or Sanders, all they do is get on their soapbox about how America is a racist country that must be remade into some socialist utopia where everyone gets free education, health care and whatever fantasy you desire.
Details never matter. If you say “cost,” they trot out children such as David Hogg and Greta Thunberg to say “How dare you” because the world is going to end in 10 years.
I always wondered: If the world will end because of climate change, how will spending trillions of dollars prevent it from happening?
When I hear about socialism, I think of once-prosperous cities, such as Camden, Jersey City, and Elizabeth. These cities used to have bustling factories that employed thousands of people with good-paying jobs. What destroyed them was these left-wing socialists such as Sanders, posing as friends of the worker.
I remember working as a chef at the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City when one of these Sanders types was trying to unionize us. Many wanted to organize but I had no interest in rocking the boat — I was making decent money and living comfortably.
I tried to warn people about these vipers. Atlantic City was hit by a recession and it wasn’t good optics to demand higher wages and gold-plated health care plans at a time when everyone in town was struggling. But with the left, everything is a moral stand. While I wasn’t satisfied with my wages, I could have quit and started a business. So, why did I need these buffoons representing me? The management did try to compromise but the militants refused.
I’m not a great talker or debater but I can spot cons like Bernie Sanders. I saw these people had three-piece suits and drove fancy cars while I needed this job to pay my bills. They would get on their soapbox railing about how the Trumps and the Carl Icahns of the world rake in the dough while you starve, when the truth was you could find another place to work if you weren’t happy.
Eventually, they went on strike. The management didn’t bite on their demands and eventually closed up the Taj Mahal. In the end, Icahn is still a billionaire, Trump became president, and Atlantic City still hasn’t recovered.
Socialism sounds wonderful. But I realized long ago that people such as Sanders have no clue how to implement their fantasies. You can raise taxes, and increase salaries, and blather on about universal health care, but it’s all fantasy unless you find the sucker who’s willing to pay for all the promises.
This is why socialism always ends in blood. The only way to implement socialism is through the barrel of a gun. If your a business and the government says we’re going to take 80% of your income, what’s stopping them from taking everything?
What business is going to stay in a country where they can’t make a profit? If you know the government is going to take everything,why would you work? So people stop making things and stop growing food.
Socialism ends in blood because if you don’t incentivize people to work, then they have to force people to build the roads, maintain security, and hold the nation together.
The good news is Sanders has no shot of being president because, unlike in Cuba and Venezuela, the capitalist class in the U.S. will never allow him near the switch box.
Don’t be surprised to see the legacy media push the radicals under the bus and support Trump. That is how dire the situation has become.
Jeffery McNeil is a Street Sense Media artist and vendor.
