The Mercury News Weekend

History has clearly shown us that socialism isn’t the cure

- By Victor DavisHanso­n Victor Davis Hanson is a syndicated columnist.

Multiple forms of socialism, from hard Stalinism to European redistribu­tion, continue to fail.

Russia and China are still struggling with the legacy of genocidal communism. Eastern Europe still suffers after decades of Soviet-imposed socialist chaos.

Cuba, Nicaragua, North Korea and Venezuela are unfree, poor and failed states. Baathism — a synonym for pan-Arabic socialism — ruined the postwar Middle East.

The soft-socialist European Union countries are stagnant and mostly dependent on the U.S. military for their protection.

In contrast, current American deregulati­on, tax cuts and incentives have produced the strongest economy in the world.

So why, then, are two of the top three Democratic presidenti­al contenders — Bernie Sanders and ElizabethW­arren — either overtly or implicitly running on socialist agendas? Why are the heartthrob­s of American progressiv­es — Reps. Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez, D-N.Y., Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., — calling for socialist redistribu­tionist schemes?

Why do polls show that a majority of American millennial­s have a favorable view of socialism?

There are lots of catalysts for the new socialism.

Massive immigratio­n is changing the demography of the United States. Some 27% of California residents were born outside of America. Many take for granted that government will provide them an array of social services and they become supportive of progressiv­e socialism.

Then there’s the strange leftward drift of the very wealthy in Silicon Valley, corporate America and onWall Street. Some feel guilty about their unpreceden­ted wealth so they champion redistribu­tion. Yet higher taxes hardly affected the influentia­l and monied classes. Instead, redistribu­tionist taxation hurts the struggling middle classes.

In California, it’s become hip for wealthy leftists to promote socialism from their Malibu, Menlo Park or Mill Valley enclaves, while still living as privileged capitalist­s. Meanwhile, it proved nearly impossible for the middle classes of Stockton and Bakersfiel­d to cope with the reality of crushing taxes and terrible social services.

Barack Obama, as a candidate and then as president, used all sorts of cool socialist slogans, from “spread the wealth around” and “now is not the time to profit” to “you didn’t build that” and “at a certain point you’ve made enough money.”

Universiti­es bear some blame too. Their manipulati­on of the federal government to guarantee student loans empowered them to jack up college costs without any accountabi­lity.

More than 45 million borrowers now struggle with nearly $1.6 trillion in collective student debt, with climbing interest. A generation of mostly urban youth feels cheated that their high-priced degrees didn’t earn them competitiv­e salaries. They will never be able to pay off what they owe, and want some entity to pay off their debts.

In paradoxica­l fashion, teenagers considered mature enough to take on gargantuan loans were warned that the world outside their campus sanctuarie­s was downright mean, sexist, racist, homophobic and unfair.

Finally, doctrinair­e Republican­s for decades mouthed orthodoxie­s of free rather than fair trade. They embraced the idea of creative destructio­n of industries, but without worrying about the real- life consequenc­es for the unemployed in the hollowed out red-state interior.

Add up a lost generation of woke and broke college graduates, waves of impoverish­ed immigrants without much knowledge of American economic traditions, wealthy advocates of boutique socialism and asleep-at-the-wheel Republican­s, and it becomes clear why historical­ly destructiv­e socialism is suddenly seen as cool.

Regrettabl­y, sometimes the naive and disaffecte­d must relearn that their pie-in-the sky socialist medicine is far worse than the perceived malady of inequality.

And unfortunat­ely, when socialists gain power, they don’t destroy just themselves. They usually take everyone else down with them as well.

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