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Bret Stephens on Bernie
Recording the podcast this morning, we asked Bret Stephens what explains the ecstatic support Bernie Sanders is eliciting among the young. I found Bret’s answer so striking — so insightful, and so disheartening — that I made notes. To wit:
I’m now hiring young college graduates who have no living memory of the Cold War. None. Now, they’re smart, and they know what the Soviet Union was. But that’s all they know.
After our victory in the Cold War, we as a country never took the trouble to educate young Americans about what communism and socialism were — not the way we educated Americans about Nazism after World War II. There was never instruction at high schools and colleges explaining why socialism always ends up being autocratic and giving you the kind of economy we’re now seeing in Venezuela.
That’s a large part of the Bernie Sanders story. Twenty-three and 24-year-olds hear the word “socialism” and think it’s cute. It’s not cute. It’s a horror on the same order as fascism, but they don’t know that.
One generation — we’re always just one generation away from losing all we value.
Published in General
Trump does. Polls show that Trump appeals to black people more than any other GOP candidate in recent history.
But, it should be *easy* for the GOP to appeal to black people. Just cite the dying cities of America where 50 years of Democrat rule have produced multigenerational poverty, huge levels of crime, especially homicide, unemployment, and general decay and evacuation. (Detroit, St. Louis, Baltimore, Flint, Philadelphia, etc.)
And the GOP has certainly run black candidates of accomplishment.
And the GOP could easily point out that the historic fact that the first 21 black congressional representatives and the first 3 black senators were Republicans.
Again, a beautiful setup for a perfectly targeted response.
“Exceptional claims require exceptional proof.”
“And even if such a socialist system could theoretically work, and that’s a wild supposition, you also need to prove how you can get from the current state to that exact point, without missing. And without a lot of damage in the process. And once you’re there, how you can keep the balance so it doesn’t drift off and cause a lot of damage. None of that is going to happen because there are no corrective mechanisms in Socialism.”
That’s fascism. And I don’t mean that pejoratively; that is Benito Mussolini’s actual economic plan.
We still need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission re: the Red Menace.
I had a conversation with someone the other day in which I said “Don’t start with the why don’t you cares and the why do you hates with me! I reject your premise!” Or something like that.
That may be true in terms of how your average young person understands socialism. But the implementation of socialism will be, when the incrementalism catches up, exactly what it has always been.
Great response!
I purposely didn’t try to go further that day. Rather, I wanted to gain her confidence so that when we talked again – after she had read some of the things I suggested – we could have a better conversation. Your additions will also be used then. Thank you.
Some of the things I suggested were Thomas Sowell’s Basic Economics, Folsom’s The Myth of the Robber Barons, anything by P J O’Rourke for a few laughs. and also attached the full version of I, Pencil.