Karl Marx is often portrayed as the hero of the masses.  After all, he believed in the creation of a "worker's paradise" following the temporary reign of the "vanguard of the proletariat" — that small, highly educated, elite group that would rule in the interests of the workers until such time as they were capable of ruling for themselves.  In Russia, that was 73 years and counting.

Wherever a Marxist revolution has taken place, that "vanguard" has decided that its reign should be permanent and in its own interests.  Communist elites enslave workers just as the Democratic Party does in cities like Baltimore and Chicago.  In communist states like the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, North Korea, and communist Cuba and Venezuela, small bands of communists seized power but refused to cede it.  When the people protest, as they are now doing in Cuba, they are met with force, hauled off, and imprisoned or shot.

Communists pretend they are the wave of the future.  Actually, they are a throwback to the outdated system of absolutist monarchy that was abolished in most of Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries.  Marx was not a brilliant thinker — he was a stubborn fool who turned his back on democratic capitalism, the most successful and humane system in history.  That's why he found a following in backwaters like czarist Russia and post-imperial China.  Communism has never appealed to those with deep-seated democratic traditions because they recognize its authoritarian nature and its threat to freedom.

Not 'til now, anyway.

Now the Democratic Party has been seized by self-proclaimed Marxists who plan to establish a permanent Marxist state in America.  Democrats believe they must move quickly before the midterm elections in order to pass controversial legislation granting them a permanent advantage in elections (HR-1) and enlarging their base (American Family Plan).  Once these partisan bills are passed, the real takeover begins with vast new taxes and regulations in the name of climate change, immigration "reform," business reform, minimum global taxation, race reparations, and a thousand other cuts designed to transform America into a Marxist economy.

This economy would be run, permanently, by professional politicians — the same sort Biden has assembled for his first term.  Antony Blinken as secretary of state, Janet Yellen at Treasury, Merrick Garland as attorney general, Deb Haaland (former chair of the New Mexico Democratic Party) as interior secretary, Marty Walsh as labor secretary, Xavier Becerra as HHS secretary, Jennifer Granholm as energy secretary — all of them came directly out of political office, and all share the same vision of expanding the size and power of government.  This is doubly so for his V.P., Harris, who knows as much about rural America as Nancy Pelosi does.

It's not just Biden's progressive appointments that are troubling — it's his cagey, secretive manner of instating Marxism.  Biden pretends to be "Joe Sixpack," but he has never worked for any length of time outside government, and he displays contempt for those who do, even to the point of challenging them to fight or do push-ups.  He is the least transparent of presidents, refusing to answer questions as if he is above having to do so.  No questions on the border crisis, no questions on pipelines, no questions on Afghanistan, no questions on anything except "playing ball" — and that answer showed what he thinks about the involvement of ordinary Americans in government.  Just shut up and watch the game. 

Biden has amassed and spent millions on the backs of ordinary Americans.  According to a Forbes estimate, Biden was spending $2,000 a day on personal expenses during the four years he was out of office — not exactly an Average Joe budget.  And Biden's declared net worth of $8 million does not accord with reports of payments from foreign governments, money that may be held in the names of family members.

Other Democrats live like royalty as well. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and her husband have a reported net worth of over $1 billion.  Nancy Pelosi's net worth (with her husband) is $115 million, while the richest U.S. senator is Democrat Mark Warner ($214 million).  The Clintons, who claimed to have left the White House "without a nickel," now have a net worth of $120 million.

All of these Democrats claim to be working for "the poor," but the poor don't get rich under their rule — they do.  And none of these rich leftists has made large charitable contributions to benefit American working people directly.  The Clinton Foundation, for example, has been described as "a complex organization that does a variety of charitable activities," which include funding the Clinton Presidential Center in Arkansas and health care in Africa and Asia.  What about ordinary people in Oklahoma and West Virginia?  Those less glamorous, and less politically rewarding, needs are never addressed, maybe because progressives don't really care about Oklahoma and West Virginia and the rest of heartland America.  

At its heart, Marxism is an expression of the most primitive of human instincts — the desire to enslave others so as to establish one's own security and superiority.  There are countless examples of dictatorial rulers who have sacrificed their own people in this way.  From Tiberius and Caligula in ancient Rome to Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and Mao, absolute power always sacrifices ordinary people — all the more easily when the brutality is masked by promises of a worker's paradise.

But now we have promises of a worker's paradise in America under the name of the "American Family Plan" and a deceptively titled Infrastructure Plan.  Marxism always leads to a greater concentration of power in the elite and enslavement for the masses.  Biden's proposed $6 trillion in emergency spending and matching $6-trillion annual budget, along with his recently announced proposals to "rein in" businesses, is an enormous step toward socialism.

America is becoming less free under a president who can't help but express his contempt for the American people — no matter how strictly his handlers prevent him from speaking off-script.  Contempt for ordinary people is not just the by-product of left-wing politics — it is the underlying motive of Marxism.  Marxists aspire to separate themselves from the people and to exploit them for their own benefit.  This explains the string of ugly gaffes — from Obama's "guns and bibles" to Harris's belittling of "rural America" — that reveal just what liberals think of heartland America.

What's frightening is that Marxists don't just feel contempt for ordinary people; they want to enslave and, if necessary, kill them.  Every American should study the record of Lenin, Stalin, and Mao and realize that communism can happen here.  In fact, it is happening, and it's far from certain that it can be stopped, even by the millions of patriots who voted for Trump. 

Jeffrey Folks is the author of many books and articles on American culture including Heartland of the Imagination (2011).

Image via Max Pixel.

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