WRITE OF CENTER
When I moved from Utah to Vermont in 1982, the newly elected mayor of the city of Burlington openly called himself a socialist. His name was Bernard Sanders. Vermont itself had been governed by Republicans for more than a century, and Sanders did not seem like a serious public official.
He had never held a real job; he was an “activist.” Many of us laughed him off, thinking he would just go away on his own. After all, there is no place on earth where socialism actually works.
Sanders became known as Bernie, and changed his affiliation to “independent,” although he caucuses with Democrats and nearly won the Democrat presidential nomination in 2016 with 13 million votes. And he still hasn’t gone away.
British icon Winston Churchill said, “Socialism is a political religion whose God is the State and whose priests are the bureaucrats … it is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy; its inherent virtue is the equal distribution of misery.”
British leader Margaret Thatcher once said, “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”
Our great Republican president Ronald Reagan said, “ Socialism only works in two places: heaven, where they don’t need it, and hell, where they already have it.”
Yet, the American people are faced once again by a loud minority of activists who want socialism in the United States. Republicans won’t abide with it and will storm the polls to prevent it.
Let’s get specific. Across America this year, multiple Democrat candidates have won their party’s primary election by campaigning on platform planks from the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). And not just in the whacko big cities on both coasts; a candidate named Abdul El-Sayed won the Democrat nomination for United States Senate from Michigan.
The DSA platform includes these planks: single payer healthcare (“ Medicare for All”), Green New Deal, universal rent control, free college education, government or social ownership of major corporations, a new U.S. Constitution, abolish the Senate, restructure or replace the presidency and the Supreme Court, defund the police and abolish prison systems, eliminate Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and open the borders.
Wow. During the fall campaign, Republican candidates will be asking their opponents where they stand on these crazy planks. As future president John Adams said in 1770, “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
Of course, Adams could not have envisioned that modern America would have audio and video recording devices, conveniently at the touch of a button on our mobile phones. It enables voters to hold candidates accountable for their own words.
The Democrat candidate for U.S. Senate from Texas, James Talarico, will need to explain to voters why he said, “Modern science obviously recognizes that there are many more than two biological sexes. In fact, there are six.”
He also said, “God is non-binary.”
When he was a state legislator, he argued against legislation that would have set a restriction limiting Texas girls’ sports to female participants. This widely popu lar leg i s lat ion passed, thanks to our Republican legislature and was signed into law by Governor Abbott. But Talarico needs to explain his opposition to this simple, common-sense law.
In 2021, he said, “Radicalized white men are the greatest domestic terrorist threat in our country.” He should explain himself to the 1.5 million of my fellow Texas veterans, many of whom are white men, and who have borne arms to protect our country, not threaten it.
On a podcast in 2023, he said, “ Christianity is just another word for causing trouble.” Most of my fellow Christians are offended by that statement.
These woke positions and weird ideas are totally out of step with Texas voters. With the Nov. 3 general election less than three months away, Republicans need to get fired up for this campaign.
And when early voting and Election Day arrive, do what Kendall County Republican voters are known for – cast a ballot for every candidate with an “R” next to their name, from top to bottom.
Scott S. Kramer is former chairman of the Kendall County Republican Party.
