The struggle between egalitarianism and wealth creation is being watched by the world with awe and apprehension -- the winner will proceed to prescribe America’s future.   

The Democratic Party carries a powerful ideological message of economic equality. It appeals to those who see themselves as unfortunate, underpaid, and exploited victims of capitalism, overwhelmed with envy that there are people of the extraordinary intelligence, ambition, and aggressiveness, and rich, and that they are not them. The Democrats have corralled the “victims” with promises of a better life, free health care, free education, more benefits, and laws to bill all this to “the rich.” In pursuit of this ideology, they incite the fury of the “victims” against “the rich” and vilify them for not giving up their wealth voluntarily.

Just as their ideological predecessors, the Democrats, bonded by the ideology, impelled by conviction, and indifferent to common principles of constitutional legitimacy, accept no moral or constitutional limitations to implement the party’s messianic mission. By skillfully mobilizing resentment and capitalizing on the ideological weakness of the Republicans, they have accrued a high level of success and ultimately redefined our Republic. In some states of the Union, the Democratic legislature, in an effort to secure its rule in perpetuity, offers suffrage to foreigners. It produced an unprecedented shift of electoral politics -- Americans no longer vote with their wallets -- other people vote with their wallets. Indeed, this representative democracy no longer represents American citizens -- it represents illegal immigrants whose morals and values are diametrically opposed to those of Americans. Thus making the United States of America not united, not states, and not even American.

So, this time it's not “the economy, stupid,” this time it's “the ideology, stupid.”   

In an unprecedented admission of the deepening shadow of socialism, the President of the United States of America, Donald J. Trump, felt it necessary during his recent address to the nation to reassure the country that “America will never be a socialist country” and to remind Americans that “…we were born free and we will stay free.” 

While the Democrats are fully united around the enshrined socialist agenda, the Republican strategy, or lack of it, is a classic case of what Henry Kissinger described as “purpose outrunning knowledge.” In this unfolding American drama, the Republicans are having difficult time formulating and expressing  their objectives in a single organized structure and, therefore, failing to offer a superior ideological alternative to the Democrats’ rallying cry of “fairness vs greed” demagoguery.

Conservatism, the prevailing ideology of the Republican Party, began losing ground with the introduction of “compassionate conservatism,” during George W. Bush’s era, which surreptitiously assimilated the tenets of socialism. This subtle attempt of balancing elements of socialism with conservatism achieved neither ideological legitimacy nor moral supremacy. An ideology is a weapon of persuasion. It encompasses a set of doctrines and values that define political aims and unites like-minded individuals. A party without an ideology is just a party of political expediency and intellectual knavery. 

Having no firm ideological basis to stand on, the Republicans are pursuing a segmented rather than a comprehensive approach to policymaking. They are trying to capitalize on individual issues and spending all of their energy and political capital attacking Medicare for all, illegal immigration, the Green New Deal etc. failing to understand that, although each program taken individually may not constitute socialization of America, they are integral components of socialists’ grand ideological conquest.

Contrary to the prevalent thinking a contemporary socialism is not centered on the dictatorship of the proletariat and expropriation of private property – it is based on a single party rule and government dependence.

As long as the government controls the economy and is able to replace the free-market capitalist economy with a political economy, and be in a position to control profits, the objectives of socialism -- economic equality -- can be achieved.

The Democrats’ programs are designed as building blocks of this strategy and need to be taken on as such.  

Fundamentally, the folly of the Republicans during the last few decades was in thinking that most people like to work. There is a huge segment of the population that has been lured by the Democrats into government dependence and some of them have already skipped the intermediate phase -- socialism, and are living in communism, each receiving according to his needs. Trump, who is guided by efficacy, is frightening them with jobs, while the Democrats are offering them more doles.

What course would America choose at this historical juncture?

The essence of historical events is not always fully understood in their time. The election of Barack Obama was a catalyzing event in the transformation of the Democratic Party into a Marxist-sponsored socialist party posing the existential threat to the American way of life. A sustained ideological effort by the Republicans and all supporters of capitalism and individual liberty is required before this tumor metastases.   

This necessity provides the impetus for anti-socialist ideology. Thanks to the emancipation of the economy from excessive taxation and the burden of regulations, Trump is creating prosperity and economic dynamism. Today there are more people working for a living than voting for a living, making the electorate more receptive to the message of inequality in wealth rather than equality in poverty. In this context, a new anti-socialist ideology must announce itself as the modern version of Andrew Carnegie’s “The Gospel of Wealth” -- an enterprising society seeking glory in economic prosperity and philanthropy.

In the absence of the ideological counterweight, the intoxicating songs of the sirens of economic equality and universal happiness will eventually lure this already indoctrinated population into what President Reagan called, “a thousand years of darkness.”

Alexander G. Markovsky is a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research, a conservative think hosted at King’s College, New York City, which examines national security, energy, risk-analysis and other public policy issues, He is the author of Anatomy of a Bolshevik and Liberal Bolshevism: America Did Not Defeat Communism, She Adopted It. He is the owner and CEO of Litwin Management Services, LLC. He can be reached at info@litwinms.com