June 28, 2019

A Second Dose of Sanders’s Socialist Snake Oil

Prior to his debate performance, Bernie made the case against Trump’s “corporate socialism.”

The day before Bernie Sanders appeared on stage for Demo Debate 2, he wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed expanding on his socialist snake oil sales pitch. It was timed to provide him a platform during the debate to riff on the “virtues” of socialism, while slamming what he calls President Donald Trump’s “corporate socialism.”

What does that mean?

Well, Bernie explains, fossil-fuel companies, pharmaceutical companies, big-box retailers like Amazon and Walmart, Wall Street banks, and others in “the billionaire class” all get subsides and tax breaks. On the other hand, American workers, consumers, and patients “get the free market,” which Sanders says leads to “higher electric bills,” “an eviction notice,” “foreclosure,” “starvation wages,” and then “you die because you cannot afford the medication you need.”

You might say he painted a very bleak picture of Barack Obama’s eight years in office.

First, Sanders isn’t wrong to decry massive corporate subsidies or unfair tax breaks, though it’s worth noting that subsidizing certain industries isn’t the same as reducing individual tax rates; the former is a gift (or graft), while the latter is simply allowing people or companies to keep more of what they rightfully earned. Moreover, Sanders didn’t even mention the word “regulation,” which is the most insidious form of taxation and the way Big Business gets in bed with Big Government to ensure the new rules hurt the potential competition. Those Wall Street bailouts he rightly complains about were Democrat-sponsored corporatist graft that instead of ending “too big to fail” practically codified it.

But none of that is “the free market,” and Donald Trump didn’t establish all that favoritism. Career politicians like Bernie Sanders did.

Second, Sanders’s prescription is worse than the disease. Rather than just ending all the bad policies, he wants to implement them for the recipients he chooses. By way of a patriotically named “21st Century Economic Bill of Rights,” Sanders calls for a whole new laundry list of “rights” that he’ll force taxpayers to fund.

As fellow socialist and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio put it in Wednesday night’s debate, “There’s plenty of money in this country, it’s just in the wrong hands.” But never fear: Bernie’s just the guy to relieve you of it so he can pay for the “rights” of his constituents. Just trust him, he says, and he’ll be the one to finally get socialism right.

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.