If That’s Socialism, We’ve Got it All Wrong

Either Bernie Sanders just showed his voters how much of a fraud he is, or we’ve got the nature of socialism all wrong. According to reports, Sanders and his wife, Jane, just purchased a lovely $600,000 “summer retreat” in North Hero, Vermont.

“We’ve traveled up to the islands many times over the years – almost always on day trips,” Jane Sanders said in a statement. “The entire family is very excited about it.”

Oh, we’re sure they are. What better place than your lavish third home to sit and contemplate the evils of the 1 percent? After all, Sanders is among the poorest elected officials in the Senate; he and his wife only brought in $205,617 in 2014. That makes them part of the 4%, which is of course much less disgusting than the top 3%, but indeed a little more disgusting than the 5%. That’s how it works, right? Comparisons?

For the last year, this man has been preaching the gospel of income inequality, demonizing the mysterious “fat cats” on Wall Street and blaming rich CEOs for the vast majority of the nation’s ills. All the while, he masqueraded as an everyday “man of the people” and pretended to be just another working stiff sick of the establishment.

But in this purchase, Sanders has done more than just show his own true colors. He’s also shown us the true nature of elite liberals, no matter which flavor of socialism they prefer. They’re ensconced in a neverending whirlwind of hypocrisy, enrichening themselves beyond their wildest dreams while pretending to care about America’s least privileged. Whether they see the hypocrisy or not is almost irrelevant. Making a self-deprecating joke or two is not the same as being in alignment with your cause.

This is, beyond all other factors, what drives so many people to embrace conservatism. Conservatism is truth. Conservatism (at its best) doesn’t hide behind a layer of fantasy. Conservatism acknowledges both the good and bad in the human heart. Conservatism is an ideology in harmony with WHAT IS. When you hear it, you feel it on a level deeper than the mundane thing we call the “mind.” You feel it at the very core of your being.

That doesn’t mean that Republicans can’t be guilty of hypocrisy, obviously, but this isn’t about any individual politician – even Bernie Sanders. This is about the beliefs that drive the Democratic Party and all other forms of socialism/liberalism. They are false beliefs that only exist because there are so many people unwilling to accept reality.

Perhaps, at his quaint little spot on the Champlain Islands, Bernie will one day realize that almost everything he believes in – everything he preached on the campaign trail – is total fiction. If so, he just made a very wise purchase.