JD Vance got socialism partly right. Cubans know the rest.
“Socialism, classically, was about prioritizing workers ... now I think that, in reality, what it truly means in the American context is wanting to replace American workers with foreign workers, and wanting boys to participate in girls’ sports.”
That was the response given by U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance during a press gaggle Thursday when asked for his definition of socialism. His remarks have since drawn commentary from the vast community of exiles from socialist regimes who have found refuge in the United States.
The Vice President’s statement was “the worst answer I’ve heard from a conservative in decades,” according to Venezuelan activist Emanuel Rincón. “The truth is that socialists have never cared about workers; they have cared about dominating the means of production or the profits derived from them, about holding total power and harassing citizens, and about extinguishing freedoms — not about doing what J.D. Vance suggests here.”
While I agree with Rincón, there is some truth to what the vice president said: modern socialism is intrinsically linked to “wokeism” and its ridiculous ideas.
It’s unrealistic to expect a politician to look good or be perfectly on point every time they appear on camera. We are all human beings. Nevertheless, I believe it is important to clarify the concept of socialism — an ideology that has led to the worst horrors known in modern history on every continent where it has been implemented.
Socialism originated as an idea to transform economic and political systems, as well as class relations. Karl Marx, the quintessential intellectual of that ideology, illustrated this in his Critique of the Gotha Program, describing it as a “cooperative society based on common ownership of the means of production.”
Socialists described socialism as the first rung — the phase immediately preceding — in the establishment of a communist society in which the state would cease to exist. Yet, to “socialize” the means of production (in plain terms: stripping ownership from those who held it), it was imperative to employ the coercive force of that very state they claimed would eventually be abolished.
Do you follow the idea? I know it sounds crazy but believe me: someone like me — who lived under a totalitarian system where these concepts were treated as gospel — can attest that they are not merely foolish, but malevolent. My country, Cuba, went from having an economy that rivaled those of Europe to competing with Haiti for the lowest rank in the hemisphere. My city, Havana — which once boasted more movie theaters than Paris or New York — has now become, as I have said before, a “Pompeii of Salt.”
After World War II, the Italian intellectual Antonio Gramsci approached socialism from a different angle: the cultural one. The revolution would no longer be fought with bullets, but by altering the “amniotic fluid” of nations — promoting envy of the successful, resentment, and the supremacy of statism as virtues among younger generations.
Institutions that shape our worldview — from schools to the media — were flooded with a narrative packaged by Leftist intellectuals who masked it as “critical thinking.”
That is where we find ourselves in the West today: a place where the Marxist concept of a struggle between “oppressors” and the “oppressed” has burst beyond the classic framework of capital owners versus workers. Now, there is “oppression” of the thin by the fat, of the “sexually diverse” by the “heteronormative,” and of immigrants by “natives.” Oppression is supposedly everywhere, but not everywhere in the world — rather, specifically in the West, with its Christian roots. That is the worst place to live, yet it is the place that receives the most immigrants year after year.
And I believe it is this latter stage that Vance was referring to in his response.
Socialism was never really about prioritizing workers. It was merely about appealing to them in order to use them as cannon fodder to seize power, whether through violence or at the ballot box.
Socialism is about taking from those who have worked, saved, and invested wisely, in order to give a portion to those whom socialists believe might become their voters. It’s about demonizing the ordinary man who is more concerned with providing for his family, saving, and raising them according to his principles — while exalting those who place the “cause” above all else.
Socialism is about lying, killing, imprisoning, plundering, and exiling entire populations — if necessary — to maintain control. Those are the true fruits of a socialist system. Miami can attest to this, Mr. Vice President. I hope this beautiful country never has to experience it firsthand.
Originally published at The Washington Stand.
Yoe Suárez is a writer, producer, and journalist, exiled from Cuba due to his investigative reporting about themes like torture, political prisoners, government black lists, cybersurveillance, and freedom of expression and conscience. He is the author of the books “Leviathan: Political Police and Socialist Terror” and “El Soplo del Demonio: Violence and Gangsterism in Havana.”
