Below is my column in the New York Post on the bizarre effort of Democratic Socialist leaders to herald South Africa and Cuba as models for the United States to emulate. They have apparently replaced Venezuela as examples of the workers’ paradise that can be found through collectivism.
Here is the column:
Socialism has long been a political theory that survives more on hype than history.
The problem for the growing movement of young socialists in America is that it has consistently failed, outside the confines of their college Marxism 101 courses.
During the Cold War, Soviet communists referred to American liberals as “useful idiots,” armchair revolutionaries who spouted proletarian slogans at cocktail parties. Zohran Mamdani and his newly appointed cadre engage in chest-pounding about their intentions to “seize the means of production” while living off their parents or working friends in high society.
Today, they are often young people who joined communist coffee klatches in college under the tutelage of academia’s “radical chic.”
They often reveal little actual historical or philosophical knowledge, which is an advantage if you are going to call for the replication of one of the least successful political theories in history.
Venezuela is a prime example.
At one time, American radicals pointed to Venezuela as the new workers’ paradise.
Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders claimed that the “American dream is more apt to be realized” in Venezuela than in the United States.
As recently as 2019, Chicago Teachers Union members went to Venezuela to herald life under socialism and how they did not see “a single homeless person.”
They also did not see any dissent or free speech, which helped conceal a collapsing economy.
In short order, socialists in Venezuela turned one of the most affluent nations on earth into an economic basket case.
After seizing control of the once-burgeoning oil industry, the socialists reduced production to a trickle.
The people suffered starvation; some were forced to eat their pets.
Venezuelan socialism was only preserved through the suppression of elections and a large force of Cuban military and security personnel.
With Venezuela now mostly out of fashion, American socialists are citing other models for the United States.
Mamdani is now heralding South Africa as a model, a country where his family owns a large estate and a guarded manor.
In his pledge to govern “expansively and audaciously,” Mamdani told New Yorkers to “look to Madiba and the South African Freedom Charter.”
The suggestion is that conditions in the United States are akin to apartheid in South Africa, and similar measures to redistribute property might be necessary in this country.
Of course, South Africa’s economy is in tatters, while many are alleging a loss of due process in the confiscation of land from white citizens.
The country has struggled with economic conditions for years under measures that range from the repressive to the moronic.
Other American socialists are citing another socialist “success” story: Cuba.
Interviewer Brandi Kruse asked Democratic Socialist Shaun Scott this week to “give me one example of socialism working well somewhere.”
The state representative from Seattle immediately cited Cuba as “a good example of socialism working well.”
He noted improvement in literacy rates and public health — while ignoring that Cuba’s economy has been reduced to little above subsistence for many citizens, and the regime continues its blood-soaked repression of its own people.
Indeed, Cuba relied on Venezuela to keep its lights on and, in return, supplied troops to repress the Venezuelan people.
Nevertheless, Scott insists that Cuba is “one example that I can think of that would resonate with pretty much anybody in our state who cares about education or health care.”
He added, “Would you disagree with that?”
Well, yeah, I would.
More importantly, so would millions who fled that nation in search of freedom. Try asking that question on the streets of Miami.
In my forthcoming book, I discuss this shift toward socialism among a new generation of young people with no experience or memory of the collapse of such systems in the 20th century.
They have been fed a reassuring line that their failure to get jobs is not due to their studying “community advocacy and social policy” but inherent failures in capitalism.
Of course, repeating communist dogma and a degree in Africana studies from Bowdoin College can still get you elected as mayor of New York City.
However, for many, the lack of employment prospects seems to reaffirm what radical faculty told them about the conspiracy of evil capitalists ranging from oligarchs to oil companies.
They are much like Cea Weaver, the new director of the Office to Protect Tenants, who holds degrees from the ultraleft universities of Bryn Mawr College and New York University, where she studied urban planning.
She has called for the seizure of private property, dismantling “white supremacy and capitalism,” voting against white men, and electing more communists.
New York will now be a type of field trip for these college communists in creating another worker’s paradise, from free buses to state-operated stores.
In the end, I expect that they will prove the Soviets wrong: There is nothing “useful” that will come from such idiocy.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the author of the forthcoming “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
The South African Freedom charter, among other things, states: “The People Shall Share in the Country’s Wealth!”, implying the nationalization of banks, mineral deposits, and other sources of wealth. South Africa has not implemented this. Is Mayor Mamdani going to ignore this or does he have eyes on Wall Street? The Freedom Charter also states: “The Land Shall Be Shared Among Those Who Work It!”. Mayor Mamdani appears to embrace this aspiration but just how his he going to do it without violating the violating the US constitution’s 5th amendment? In other news, popcorn sales outside of New York City is increasing.
You are measuring success all wrong.
You can’t even measure whether you’re a boy or a girl.
Can you believe it? I just read that Pelosi and Goldman because of their love of socialism are voluntarily turning over their vast fortunes to the government in support of the downtrodden. I have a new found respect of them for putting their money where their mouths are. I hear that they are encouraging Mamdani to follow suit with little success so far. Stay tuned as more facts of this story are discovered due to the ongoing intense investigation of the matter by the Attorney Generals in the precincts in which they reside.
Their unbelievable benevolence should not go unnoticed.
Indeed, we are not dealing with differing opinions anymore – these people literally want to overthrow our country and absorb us into the globalist amoeba. Our 1A and 2A have never in our history been more important. There is nothing redeemable about the modern left – they are no longer an American party, and they are proud of it -vote for them at your peril, wake up (awake is actually the diametric opposite of ‘woke’, which implies a hazy, brain dead acceptance of what other people tell you you should do). Unfortunately, the average modern blue voter does not possess the Professor’s acumen. Or even that of the sane posters here.
Excellent James! You’re pointing directly at the heart of the problem, and it’s exactly what Awakening a Forgotten Republic, which I published about a month ago, is about. We’re no longer debating policy preferences; we’re confronting a collapse of civic understanding so deep that many people no longer recognize the principles that make self-government possible. “Wake up” doesn’t mean panic or blind allegiance, it means recovering clarity about first principles: free speech, self-defense, limits on power, and personal responsibility. A republic can survive disagreement; it cannot survive a citizenry that no longer understands what it is or why it exists.
@OLLY
That is excellent, but i fear we have to wake these younger sleepy fools to the fact that they love in a Republic in the first place, and they would not be free to cavort and dissent if they had what they consider to be their utopia. The ideas of ‘dictatorship’ are so backward among this crowd it boggles the mind, and I include older people that should know better in that assessment.
It’s like the past 60 years never happened, and that, I suspect, is partially by design. Really: IMO the modern left is a plague to free people everywhere on earth, and they have very successfully fooled the gullible into thinking they are the opposite. Always love your comments, OLLY, thanks for bringing something salient everyday.
That my cohort knew better than modern Ivy League grads in junior-freaking-high simply by way of being educated without bias – sheesh. We have a big, big problem on our hands.
‘Live’ in a Republic, though I love it too. My apologies for typos, I still actually work for a living.
James, one thing I’ve consistently noticed about your comments here is how firmly they’re grounded in first principles and how clearly you connect current events to the larger dangers beneath them. I sometimes call it a peace of principles; that moment when something hits the heart before the mind finishes evaluating it, because it’s anchored in truth, and your commentary reliably does that for me. If you ever chose to read Awakening a Forgotten Republic, I’d genuinely value your perspective and an honest review. And if it resonates, I think you’d find what I’m working on next even more compelling. It builds directly on the same foundation.
Degree in urban planning? Phooey. Cea Weaver has a degree in urban scheming.
I’ve been retired from the professoriate for a while now, but when I was actively teaching one of the courses I taught regularly was Engineering Economics. It is a junior/senior level course in cost estimating, theory of interest, finance, analysis of alternatives, capital budgeting, and I’d even add sections on public and personal finance — a very useful course even if it helped propel a few students to other majors. It was also a course in which I heard more idiocy come from the mouths of young people than I could possibly relate here.
At times it really did seem that college made people more stupid.
Giuliani came to office back in the day because NYC had softened law enforcement. I don’t think Mamdani will make that mistake. Office real estate softened because of the 2019 Covid pandemic. Although there has been some return to office, much work is done at home. Talk about being able to adapt, he even went to the White House after his election 🙂
michael molovinsky says: Talk about being able to adapt, he even went to the White House after his election
Brilliant analysis by the “conservative” who lauded Obama for his foreign affairs ‘chops’ with adversarial nations like Iran.
Mamdani the communist is cleverly going to play an adversarial free market Trump to have him perform as his puppet!
After all, he wouldn’t be hoping he could soften Trump up and get American taxpayer dollars to shore up his version of communism in New York when he runs out of other peoples’ money to spend.
The direct product of the teacher’s unions and the DOA. Abolish them both. They are turning out indoctrinated tards. Take it from a Cuban here since 1967.
Add North Korea
After all, Glorious Supreme Dear Divine Leader Kim Jong Un aka Rocket Man has been behaving during the oil tanker seizures.
Maybe Trump will sell some dirt cheap oil to Kim.
The modern Socialist reply to your position is that, “Those countries did Socialism wrong. We will do Socialism right.”
The Truth About Venezuela Under Socialism, From Those Who Fled It
https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/the-truth-about-venezuela-under-socialism-from-those-who-fled-it-5966345
I’m not as worried about a lying piece of islamist/communist cr*p as I am about the throngs of un/mis/falsely-educated parasites that believe him and have a vote. Perhaps we need bring back a minimum competency test before voting.
We could do that, or…consciously begin preparing pre-teens to grow into effective actors in a capitalist system.
The retail corporations are allowed to groom pre-teens to become voracious consumers. Who is encouraging them to start becoming producers?….who is rewarding them for contributing? I’d say maybe 5-10% of parents.
Blaming the left isn’t going to solve the problem. Blaming rarely does. Capitalism requires years of acculturation to “like”. If you have no experience as an earner, and just get dead-dropped in at age 18 or 22, it doesn’t look friendly.
Omitted from the story.
The vast majority of Democratic mayors and governors don’t agree with Mamdani. Abigail Spanberger (incoming Virginia governor) has publicly gone in the opposite direction.
This is how Republicans mislead voters. They take the 1% exception and broad bush falsely stereotype 100% of Democrats.
The average voter then thinks 100% of Democrats agree with Mamdani. The opposite is true. Of course, Democrats usually fall for this trick every time, losing elections.
“The vast majority of Democratic mayors and governors don’t agree with Mamdani. ”
Prove it please.
Republicans are not misleading anyone. We read the news, see who backs Mamdani and those who remain silent. I have no doubt there are Democrats who disagree with Mamdani. My own sister, a registered Democrat, thinks his policies are unachievable and will amount to nothing. He said he would pay for free buses by a state wide tax increase on the wealthy. NY Governor Hochul, a Democrat, said, “No.” to that idea.
This is how Republicans mislead voters. They take the 1% exception and broad bush falsely stereotype 100% of Democrats.
This is how communist commentators lie in defense of communism. First their communist political leaders mislead voters. And then their communist acolytes hope to mislead Republicans about their communist politicians.
Obama never told those who voted for him that once he was president was going to “fundamentally change America” with his phone and pen. Nor “redistribute the wealth” while running for office.
Instead he said he would be a “president for all Americans” – rather than saying “You white Americans are systemically racist”.
No different than Democrats who had tied their political fortunes to supporting Biden, who suddenly wanted nothing to do with him and his agenda after he was known to be The Oval Office House Plant.
Not even his DEI Hire, Harris, would run on continuing the glorious Biden legacy.
Time to disappear until your next Commie Clown Show performance…
Gosh, I guess right wing people preventing free speech have to pay for their misdeeds.
https://www.newsweek.com/professor-fired-over-charlie-kirk-post-wins-500000-and-gets-job-back-11324020?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1767818006
Why did you lie. The Government had nothing to do with this.
You’re both stupid. 1st, he said nothing about “the government”, 2nd, and dustoff then interpreted that as ” The Government had nothing”.
Gosh, I guess right wing people preventing free speech have to pay for their misdeeds.
A Marxist racist who was fired over posts gloating and celebrating Kirk’s murder gets fired by the Marxists running that college – then gets his job back and the half million dollars because the Marxists report they must reward him because they didn’t fire him in the proper manner! Who could possibly think this had absolutely nothing with “right wing people”???? Never mind that not a single person involved in this could be called “right wing”.
Smooth move, Exlax…
Boy, you can sure spot the raging leftists amongst these “anonymous” posters who promote Cuba and South Africa (and used to promote Venezuela) as model economies. They have to shut their eyes and ears and ignore history and current events in order for Marx and Lenin to continue as their role models. Must be intellectually exhausting.
” raging leftists amongst these “anonymous” posters …” Then why don’t you point them out? We see only a bunch of bigmouths like yourself with insipid comments.
Yet Mamdani and every other Socialist in the US REFUSE to move to Cuba or South Africa. I wonder why.
https://babylonbee.com/video/college-freshman-explains-socialism-to-cuban-who-escaped-on-a-raft
Not enough snow to enjoy plowing there, obviously. Commie Mamdani enjoys refreshing mornings of shoveling snow at oh dark thirty on New York snow days so he won’t be late for work.
He DOES shovel his own snow as a model of the working proletariat… doesn’t he???
Mamdani never said he wanted to move to Cuba or SA.
Mamdani never said he wanted to move to Cuba or SA.
That’s true – he said he intends to move New Yorkers into a similar communist environment of failure.
Maybe Madmani should follow California with a 5% wealth tax along with the safe and free buses and Madmani city food stores? I imagine the socialism devotees will relish that idea?
Why would he want to do that? Are you now advising him on how to run NYC. Funny thing, it seems he’s ignoring you.
Funny thing, Mamdani is ignoring all of the historical failures of socialism. You know, Stalin era Soviet Union, Mao’s Great Leap Forward, those kind of things that resulted in the deaths of millions.
“Mamdani is now heralding South Africa as a model . . .”
That “model” is tribalism — the vicious notion that a social or ethnic group is everything; the individual, nothing. Mamdani’s “warmth of collectivism” is the blood shed during decades of Africa’s chronic ethnic wars. Coming soon to a NYC street near you.
Mamdani is a power luster and a destroyer. But he is not stupid. He knows that the antidote to tribalism and collectivism is what he smears as: “the frigidity of individualism.”
If you want a quintessential example of “tribalism”, them look no further than the MAGA tribe..
Tribalism is strong loyalty to one’s own social group, tribe, or party, often characterized by an “us vs. them” mentality, prioritizing in-group interests, and sometimes negative attitudes toward outsiders. It stems from a need for belonging and security, seen in ancestral survival instincts, but in modern contexts, it can manifest as political polarization.
The MAGA movement exhibits strong elements of tribalism, characterized by intense in-group loyalty, us-vs-them dynamics, reliance on cultural symbols (like specific music, apparel), distrust of outsiders (elites, media, foreigners), and a focus on identity and status.
The wearing of red MAGA hats is a classic example of the use of symbols to express the wearer’s identification with the tribe.
Aha! The old “I’m rubber and you’re glue” argument! Such insight! Such nuance! Huzzah!
The MAGA movement exhibits strong elements of tribalism, characterized by intense in-group loyalty, us-vs-them dynamics, reliance on cultural symbols
Nice to have you join us here this morning, Bolshevik Barack…. are you excited while waiting to watch Commie Mamdani replicate your “systemic white racism” and “redistribute the wealth”?
Projection:
Channeling one’s actions onto others typically refers to the psychological concept of projection, where a deeply emotionally disturbed individual unconsciously or deliberately attributes their own thoughts, feelings, and anti-social or criminal behaviors onto someone else.
This is an internal defense mechanism which allows mentally ill people to avoid confronting their own behavior and guilt by seeing it instead as as the thoughts and actions of another person who they despise and hate.
Wrong.
Do I agree with everything Trump says or does? Of course not. Just like I did not agree with everything past presidents have said or done. MAGA is not perfect but it is a heck of a lot better than what Democrats have to offer. Why would I blindly trust the elites? They would have to earn my trust and respect by their words and more importantly by their actions. MSM? They have earned our distrust with their gaslighting, bias and lies. Foreigners? I am sure there are a lot of fine Venezuelaians and Cubans who have escaped their countries to come to America and enjoy freedom.
I do not own a red MAGA hat. Your characterization of any MAGA person, or Trump supporter is nothing more than a gross stereotype.
“That “model” is tribalism — the vicious notion that a social or ethnic group is everything; ” If you haven’t noticed that this blog is a tribe.
Anyway, appreciate the racist analogy.
If you haven’t noticed that this blog is a tribe. Anyway, appreciate the racist analogy.
You can call ‘conservatism’ tribalism. It would be equally accurate to call Democrat Communism what it is – communism. And with your racists like Obama and Biden with their long history of appealing to the historical racism that still runs through the Democrats, you should appreciate the racist analogy.
George Wallace is making a comeback in Democrat circles. Mamdani is behind the times. He needs to grab a fire hose and target NYers much like George Wallace’s Bull Connors did and now Tim Walz is prepared to do with using the National Guard against the Feds! Fun times!!!
George Wallace lost it.
Bull Connor lost it.
Hillary Clinton lost it
Nancy Pelosi lost it
Joe Biden lost it
Mamdani has lost it.
Tim Walz never had it but he lost that too!
🤣
Walz gives order to prepare National Guard after ICE officer fatally shoots woman in Minneapolis
https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/walz-natinal-guard-ice-officer-fatal-shooting-minneapolis/
Mamdani the Commie’s Idols of Great Outcomes – South Afreaka and SHOLE Cuba – a bastions of Equity! Everybody’s life SUCKS except the elitist communist/socialist filth that get to loot the system and live in a bubble of comfort! What a surprise that the wealthy Indian Mayor of NYC gets to stay in the bubble and pander to the low IQ morons that voted for him as he promises to gut the people that actually support that Dump Of A City!! Good Luck Nit Wits.
X says, “have you been to Cuba?” as his rejoinder to those who cite the collapsed country of Cuba.
Hey X, ever been a billionaire? Then why criticize them?
Ever been on a business owner? Then why pretend to know anything about running a business?
Ever had sex with a woman? No, the biological male skank who told you he was a she-male does not count
bwahahahahahahah
Ever had sex with a woman? No, the biological male skank who told you he was a she-male does not count
bwahahahahahahah
‐—————-
Brutal Takedown. I LOVE IT! 😹😹😹
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Winner ⬆️… 🏆🏆🏆