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Sept. 2, 2020 - Jim Bakker Show
04:24
What Is Democratic Socialism - Joel Pollak
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Why Democrats Embraced Free Trade? 00:04:24
In chapter three, you write about democratic socialism.
Why is socialism being equated with the Democratic Party?
Well, it's a very interesting question because prior to the end of the Cold War, Democrats were very careful about not identifying themselves as socialists.
And especially in the Clinton era in the 1990s, Democrats went even further toward the middle.
Democrats said, we want to be the party of free markets.
We want to be the party of free trade.
We want to help the economy grow.
That was the hallmark of the Clinton era.
It was an era of economic growth.
He had a lot of other scandals and problems, but he kept the economy growing because he was moving back toward the middle.
But what happened is we raised a generation after the Cold War that never learned why we fought the Cold War.
They never learned that communism wasn't just a system that didn't work.
It was also an evil system.
It was an immoral system.
And they have grown up believing it's actually an ideal system, something to strive for if we ever have the resources, if we ever have the organization.
And Democrats have moved more and more toward that socialist left because they feel it's authentic.
Also, socialism is in many ways a kind of political religion.
It tells people to believe hard enough in a utopian future that human beings can create on earth, that we can even improve human beings and make human beings perfect in a way that fits in a system in which everybody will work just as hard as everybody else, and everybody will enjoy life just as much as everybody else, and everybody will be just as happy or unhappy as everybody else.
But that's not human nature.
It's also not how God created us.
And socialism as a religious belief in the political realm is filling a space that has been left behind in many cases by people who don't have that spiritual place in their lives.
With the decline of the role of religion in public life, you see people, especially young people, looking for something else to replace it.
So they're attracted to socialism, and the Democrats are moving to socialism because it feels more authentic.
The socialists, like Bernie Sanders, they're honest about what they really want.
Even though it's pie in the sky, it's a dream, it's utopia.
They're at least articulating that dream.
They're being honest about wanting to pursue that dream, even if they're dishonest about whether we can actually get there.
They're dreamers.
They're talking about faith.
They're talking about community.
These are things that people would have in their lives if we had healthy faith communities, if we had religious leaders who were playing a more active role in public life, if we had politicians who were willing, as Donald Trump has been willing, to bring the Bible into the public sphere to talk about God, which he does at almost every opportunity.
That brings back a sense of spirituality, a sense of belonging that doesn't rely on politics.
Our forefathers didn't rely on politics to tell them what the meaning of life was.
They didn't rely on politics to tell them how to live in their families.
They relied on the Bible.
They relied on tradition, on God.
But all of those things have been moved out of the public sphere.
It's interesting, you know, Kanye West is running for president also, and he's not going to qualify for the ballot in most states.
But if you look at his platform, it's interesting.
He understands something Donald Trump also understands.
The very first sentence in Kanye West's platform is restore faith.
Restore faith.
That's the first thing in Kanye West's platform.
And it tells you that he has picked up on something Donald Trump has picked up on as well, which is that the answer to many of our political problems is a restoration of real faith in our community life, in our life as a national culture, in our life as a nation, because it's been degraded and cast aside by our elites.
And you see the result in the streets of America.
Ordinary people who might never have thought about attacking police officers, looting stores, shutting down traffic, they're supporting this movement because it's the only thing offering them a utopian vision for a better future.
Faith offers that, but people haven't familiarized themselves with faith and they haven't learned the evil of communism.
And communism, not coincidentally, outlaws religion or at least suppresses it.
Communism demands that the state itself be the church.
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