America Is A Communist Country

In the truest sense of the word, Communism is meant to mean a system of governance in which the workers own the means of production. However here in America we have developed and popularized a very different meaning for this word, whereby we use it to describe any country whose government is really a form of dictatorship and where the people have no real freedom (e.g. China, Russia, and North Korea). In some weird way we have conflated this misuse of the word communism with socialism, and it is now seen as an irrevocable disability to be labeled as a socialist in this country, even though most of the people if asked without the stigma of socialism attached actually like and support socialist policies (Social Security, anyone?).

Americans also have a strong tendency to take pride in themselves and their country as the world's strongest leader and 'defender of democracy'. This is an image many proud Americans today still uphold, even as many of them still persist in rallying in support of our very own would-be Communist dictator. And when I use the word 'communist' here, I am using it in the all-American meaning it has gained.

The Trump Legacy

For anyone who has been keeping up with American politics or even the political scene in America over the last four-- almost five-- years, it will come as no surprise to hear that during his term as president Donald Trump made inroads into trying to set himself up as a dynastic dictator in the truest meaning of the word. He was, by his own admission and definitely by his actions, in great admiration of both Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un, both leaders of highly repressed 'communist' countries and internationally recognized as dictators. People who are, quite frankly, generally looked down upon by all the world's leading free and democratic countries. And here America was, the self-proclaimed 'greatest democracy in the world' with a leader not only willing but actively trying to get into bed with both of them.

Thankfully there are a lot of Americans (myself among them) who will proclaim quite vociferously that Trump was 'not their president'. However he was the president of a very active and motivated vocal minority who are very good at coming together and getting even usually sane and reasonable people to fall into line. Unlike the Democrats, the Republicans had no 'Bernie or Bust' component, and it showed when Trump got elected.

I occasionally talk with people from other countries (mostly in Europe), and my input from them was mostly that the people in their countries looked at ours and wondered what the hell happened. They kind of couldn't believe that we were serious when we announced Trump as our 45th president, and honestly neither could I. But we did somehow install our own little would-be dictator, and had four years of him prancing around the White House, doing irreparable damage to the country, electing a large number of supreme court judges, talking about how great he was going to make America out of one side of his mouth while out the other going around groveling to the likes of Putin and Kim Jong Un, trying to be besties with them. It was pretty shameful.

Supporters of Trump will probably argue with me on this (or more likely just flat out accuse me of lying and then be able to produce no evidence to support that claim), but anyone with an outsider's perspective or more than two working brain cells to knock together will see the ways in which he was trying to set himself up for the long-term. All of the high-profile, appointee positions went to his friends and family and high-ranking donors to his campaign, securing him a sound base from which to enact his policies (something dictators tend to do too, by the way). Pretty much all of which, if looked at critically and completely, served to further line his own pocketbooks and at least one of which pretty much bulldozed through the face of the law disallowing presidents to receive gifts from foreign governments. I say 'pretty much' here because technically the claim could be made that they weren't really gifts, but by forcing all foreign dignitaries to stay at one of his hotels and then pocketing the money for their stay, I'd say that was a pretty substantial gift from a number of foreign governments who needed an audience with the American president for one reason or another.

But how does any of this tie into Communism, you might ask? Well, by the actual definition, it doesn't. But by the American definition, which we base off of Cold War propaganda against Stalinism and tend to slap on pretty much any country with a dictatorship or governing model we tend not to agree with, it sure is! Is America anywhere near as bad as China, or Russia, or North Korea? No, not yet. But we are getting there, one slippery step at a time, and Trump's attempts to emulate his good friends Putin and Kim kickstarted us down there.

And the main reason that I am saying that-- his thankfully averted attempt to become a dictator and set up a dynasty aside-- is due largely to the reaction that came about in response to the results of the 2020 Presidential election.

Voting Rights, and the Lack Thereof

For America, the 2020 election was a pivotal one in a number of ways. For one thing, it was coming on the heels of four years of a president who openly flaunted our laws, traditions, and in some ways the Constitution itself but whom no one for some reason could seem to actually unseat despite two impeachments. The political divide created in this country between his supporters and his dissenters was the greatest it has been since the American Civil War (and although Trump would be the anti-Lincoln, he's no Jeff Davis either). And then to top it all off we were in the middle of a global pandemic over a virus with a working vaccine but which the majority in the country had no access to. Add to that that the main reason the Democrats even lost the 2016 election was due to dissention in the party and the inability to unite behind one single candidate, and it's clear that this was a pretty nerve-wracking situation for anyone who'd been paying any sort of attention.

And then, due to the severity of the virus and concerns about spreading it at polling stations, there was mail-in voting.

A perfectly reasonable solution, one would think, for holding an election in a country homebound by the health-conscious dictates of social distancing and quarantine, but not in the eyes of then-president Trump. For any American who is of voting age, it should be a not-so-distant memory that not only was Trump vehemently and vociferously against the concept of mail-in voting, but also quite seriously suggested postponing the election until the virus-induced pandemic had abated. Seeing as we're now almost a year advanced of that election and despite free vaccine access the virus still hasn't gone away or significantly reduced in potency, who's to say when we would have been able to have our election if it had been postponed. And let's not forget that there was actually a vaccine for Covid-19 manufactured while Trump was still in office, and that he actually sat on it for months instead of making it publicly available so that he could make the virus into a campaign issue. The whole story with Trump, the virus, and the vaccine is, however, a whole different can of worms and while it is one that concerns me deeply, I am going to leave it here for now before I risk getting too off-topic.

Back to the topic at hand: mail-in voting was clearly the safest way for the country to hold its election on time, and only in 'communist', dictator-run countries is it an acceptable practice to not only withhold the populace's ability to vote, but to postpone an entire democratic election for an unforeseeable length of time. Which is something Trump and apparently a lot of his 'anti-communist, anti-dictator' supporters were strangely perfectly on-board with. Not only that, but in the aftermath of the election, not just one but two states went to the Supreme Court to try to appeal the results on the basis that mail-in ballots could be faked and therefore couldn't and shouldn't be counted. Luckily for us and the continuance of our democracy 'Republican' isn't always synonymous with 'Trumpite' and the Supreme Court upheld the election results both times. However, this has only led to the facilitation of a new and infinitely more sinister trend.

I'm sure by now that we have all heard about Georgia and their new voting rights laws. We have them now in Texas too. They're worse than gerrymandering, because while that practice is illegal (yet still happens), these are laws which quite literally take away the voice of the voters. Just like in Russia's 'elections', you can still go to the polls and cast your ballot, but regardless of who you cast your vote for, someone (a Republican in the two states with these laws now enacted) is ultimately going to be deciding your vote for you. These decisions will be based, ostensibly, on the political climate of where you live and are being made to protect against perceived voter fraud. But if you start giving the governing individuals who rely on elections to keep their seats the power to decide which way it is most likely that the public is voting, I'm pretty sure we're not going to see any new faces in government for quite some time regardless of who the public is actually voting for. And, sadly, these laws have been upheld by the Supreme Court, despite the clear threat they represent to our democracy.

Overall, I believe that a lot of Americans like to believe themselves 'better than' and above the ability to fall into the charismatic trap of a dictator. We pride ourselves on our freedom and independence and don't want the government in our lives. It is therefore increasingly odd, and in terms of lasting consequences downright scary, how many of the people who most espouse those values seem to be allowing themselves to be drawn into supporting actions and policies (and the people who wish to make them a reality) that go so strongly against those core beliefs. In that regard, I believe that it is of the upmost importance that we all realize that, regardless of what we might think, we are all susceptible to the rhetoric of dictators and tyrants. That is how they become successful in the first place.

While actual communism may not be at all sinister or worrying, the current form of 'communist country government' we seem to be heading towards is. And, as a country, I do believe that we should be concerned.