“Socialism rarely arrives announcing where it intends to end. It arrives incrementally, one soul at a time.”
In 1992, the Democrat Party platform proudly declared, “We believe in free enterprise and the power of market forces.” It called business a noble endeavor and said renewed American prosperity required private investment.
By 2025, Gallup found that 66 percent of Democrats viewed socialism favorably. Only 42 percent viewed capitalism favorably. In 2010, the two were essentially tied among Democrats.
That is one hell of a change in thirty-three years.
My friend Jimy has been emailing around a seven-point document called Why You Should Vote Republican. He goes after socialism, illegal immigration, big government, affordability, election integrity, mandates and individual freedom.
What I like about Jimy’s approach is that he doesn’t spend half the document apologizing before making his point. He looks at the country, looks at the two parties and tells you exactly what concerns him. And he’s right!
His first concern is socialism.
Now, Democrats telling Gallup they view socialism favorably does not mean they all want to nationalize Ford and seize the neighborhood bakery. People use the word socialism to mean different things.
An actual socialist organization is considerably less fuzzy.
The Democratic Socialists of America’s 2026 program says its enemies include the “entire global system of capital.” It calls for drafting a new constitution and creating a “democratic socialist republic.” It says complete victory will require “building a new society from the ground up.” Elsewhere, it calls for public ownership of the largest corporations and essential industries, abolishing the Senate and replacing the president and Supreme Court with institutions subordinate to Congress.
That is not Medicare negotiating the price of Lipitor.
Socialism and communism are not technically identical. The historical relationship between them, however, is hardly imaginary. Marxist-Leninist theory treated socialism as the lower stage on the road toward communist society. Democratic socialism later developed along different lines and generally rejected Soviet-style dictatorship.
My shorthand is considerably less academic:
Socialism is communism lite.
America is not going to wake up one Tuesday morning with hammer-and-sickle flags hanging from every post office. Political systems usually change more quietly than that. A program created to solve one problem becomes permanent. Another private decision becomes a political decision. Something that sounded radical twenty years ago becomes ordinary, and the next argument starts from there.
Jimy gets at the same problem in his section on big government. Why should anyone assume a centralized government can competently make millions of specialized decisions better than the people who actually have to live with them?
The American idea of self-government was never limited to voting. Families, churches, businesses, charities, towns and voluntary organizations once handled enormous parts of ordinary civic life themselves. Tocqueville famously noticed this nearly two centuries ago. Americans saw problems, formed associations and tried to solve them.
Moving responsibility upward changes that relationship. Citizens surrender some responsibility along with the burden. Local institutions matter less. Problems once handled by families and communities become political problems waiting for Washington.
And Washington is already enormous.
The Congressional Budget Office projects $7.4 trillion in federal spending in 2026 against about $5.6 trillion in revenue, leaving a deficit of roughly $1.9 trillion in a single year. Debt held by the public is about 101 percent of GDP and is projected to reach 120 percent by 2036.
Both parties helped build that monster. But when government can spend $7.4 trillion and still come up almost $2 trillion short, asking it to assume still more responsibility deserves a little scrutiny.
You can see another side of economic policy without ever opening a CBO report. Just go grocery shopping.
When inflation falls, the previous price increases do not disappear. If something costs $100 and inflation pushes it to $108, getting inflation back down to 3 percent does not return the price to $100. Now you are adding 3 percent to $108.
You’re still getting screwed. You’re just getting screwed more slowly.
Jimy also talks about election integrity. Here again, the political argument sometimes sounds much more divided than voters actually are.
Pew found in 2025 that 95 percent of Republicans and 71 percent of Democrats favored requiring voters to show government-issued photo identification.
Seven out of ten Democrat voters. Whatever else someone believes about election law, voter ID clearly isn’t an idea confined to Republicans.
Jimy also raises mandates, CBDCs and government control. Different issues, same institutional problem.
Presidents change. Congress changes. Political coalitions change.
The power usually remains.
Authority handed to people you trust today can eventually be exercised by people you wouldn’t trust to feed your dog.
Thirty-three years ago, the Democrat Party was openly praising free enterprise and market forces. Today, roughly two-thirds of Democrats view socialism favorably.
That does not mean every Democrat means the same thing by socialism. It does mean the political ground has moved a long way.
I’ve had 58 years to watch it move.
Jimy sees many of those same changes. He lays out seven reasons for his concern, and he doesn’t bury them under twenty paragraphs of political throat-clearing.
Jimy’s Original
Below is the link to Jimy’s document exactly as he sent it to me. Please read it.
Just wanted to tell you that this is the best Substack article that you have written. I’m going to forward it to my friends and family. Both my husband and I came from Cuba in 1960 and 1961. I came with my parents and brother. My husband came by himself through the Pedro Pam flights sponsored by the Catholic Church and was fortunate to be able to live with his aunt and her family until his family arrived. It’s very disheartening to see how the Democrat Party continues to glorify Socialism which we know is Communism lite. There will be no going back to our Constitutional Republic if they win. We have to win the Midterm Elections. May God bless the United States of America!