Socialism has long been a political theory that survives more on hype than history.
The problem for the growing movement of young socialists in America is that it has consistently failed, outside the confines of their college Marxism 101 courses.
During the Cold War, Soviet communists referred to American liberals as “useful idiots,” armchair revolutionaries who spouted proletarian slogans at cocktail parties.
Today, they are often young people who joined communist coffee klatches in college under the tutelage of academia’s “radical chic.”
Like Zohran Mamdani and his newly appointed cadre, they engage in chest-pounding about their intentions to “seize the means of production” while living off their parents or working friends in high society.
They often reveal little actual historical or philosophical knowledge, which is an advantage if you are going to call for the replication of one of the least successful political theories in history.
Venezuela is a prime example.
At one time, American radicals pointed to Venezuela as the new workers’ paradise.
Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders claimed that the “American dream is more apt to be realized” in Venezuela than in the United States.
As recently as 2019, Chicago Teachers Union members went to Venezuela to herald life under socialism and how they did not see “a single homeless person.”
They also did not see any dissent or free speech, which helped conceal a collapsing economy.
In short order, socialists in Venezuela turned one of the most affluent nations on earth into an economic basket case.
After seizing control of the once-burgeoning oil industry, the socialists reduced production to a trickle.
The people suffered starvation; some were forced to eat their pets.
Venezuelan socialism was only preserved through the suppression of elections and a large force of Cuban military and security personnel.
With Venezuela now mostly out of fashion, American socialists are citing other models for the United States.
Mamdani is now heralding South Africa as a model, a country where his family owns a large estate and a guarded manor.
In his pledge to govern “expansively and audaciously,” Mamdani told New Yorkers to “look to Madiba and the South African Freedom Charter.”
The suggestion is that conditions in the United States are akin to apartheid in South Africa, and similar measures to redistribute property might be necessary in this country.
Of course, South Africa’s economy is in tatters, while many are alleging a loss of due process in the confiscation of land from white citizens.
The country has struggled with economic conditions for years under measures that range from the repressive to the moronic.
Other American socialists are citing another socialist “success” story: Cuba.
Interviewer Brandi Kruse asked Democratic Socialist Shaun Scott this week to “give me one example of socialism working well somewhere.”
The state representative from Seattle immediately cited Cuba as “a good example of socialism working well.”
He noted improvement in literacy rates and public health — while ignoring that Cuba’s economy has been reduced to little above subsistence for many citizens, and the regime continues its blood-soaked repression of its own people.
Indeed, Cuba relied on Venezuela to keep its lights on and, in return, supplied troops to repress the Venezuelan people.
Nevertheless, Scott insists that Cuba is “one example that I can think of that would resonate with pretty much anybody in our state who cares about education or health care.”
He added, “Would you disagree with that?”
Well, yeah, I would.
More importantly, so would millions who fled that nation in search of freedom. Try asking that question on the streets of Miami.
In my forthcoming book, I discuss this shift toward socialism among a new generation of young people with no experience or memory of the collapse of such systems in the 20th century.
They have been fed a reassuring line that their failure to get jobs is not due to their studying “community advocacy and social policy” but inherent failures in capitalism.
Of course, repeating communist dogma and a degree in Africana studies from Bowdoin College can still get you elected as mayor of New York City.
However, for many, the lack of employment prospects seems to reaffirm what radical faculty told them about the conspiracy of evil capitalists ranging from oligarchs to oil companies.
They are much like Cea Weaver, the new director of the Office to Protect Tenants, who holds degrees from the ultraleft universities of Bryn Mawr College and New York University, where she studied urban planning.
She has called for the seizure of private property, dismantling “white supremacy and capitalism,” voting against white men, and electing more communists.
New York will now be a type of field trip for these college communists in creating another worker’s paradise, from free buses to state-operated stores.
In the end, I expect that they will prove the Soviets wrong: There is nothing “useful” that will come from such idiocy.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the author of the forthcoming “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
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