We all remember President Obama’s infamous 2012 campaign quote: “You didn’t build that.”
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There were many, many layers of wrong with that assertion, but we will confine ourselves to the aspect of it that is now fashionable: that somehow all government projects, like roads and bridges, constitute “socialism,” according to the Democratic Socialists of America and their DSA fellow travelers.
They don’t, of course. They constitute civilization. First world civilization. Derived, importantly, from vibrant capitalism. We are civilized, not socialist.
What were we supposed to have done? Keep traversing mud? Ignore the advent of asphalt and not give our consent to our elected representatives to build roads and bridges? If one stops to think about their examples of socialism for even one second, they’re silly, childish, extrapolated nonsense.
Obama’s “green czar” Van Jones, has recently been on CNN sounding the alarm about DSA which is curious if you recall that Van Jones had to resign his position in the first Obama administration largely because his own “socialist” past clung too tightly. Jones became a self-identified communist and third-worldist after the fall of the Berlin Wall when only the most ideological clung to the then-obviously discredited idea. It’s worth noting that Van Jones was 40 years old in 2009 when Obama hired him. Most of us are well settled into our political identity by then, so Obama knew exactly who and what he was getting with him. Obama’s closest advisor Valerie Jarrett even bragged to a 2009 audience that they had been “watching him” a long time before they “recruited” him.
A reminder of who Van Jones is, from a 2012 article:
“…Jones was tapped by Obama in 2009 as his green-jobs adviser. That April he was dubbed one of the world’s 100 most influential people by Time magazine, which called him — in an entry by actor Leonardo DiCaprio — ‘a pioneer in fusing economic opportunity and social justice with environmentalism.’”
The “fusion” of of which Mr. DiCaprio speaks is really just socialism/communism: “economic opportunity” (read: government money), “social justice” (read: whites get screwed and non-whites get special privileges) and “environmentalism” (read: green government money ostensibly in service of a green natural world).
From The (U.K.) Times newspaper:
“[Van Jones] has said he was radicalised by the Rodney King case…
‘I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28, and then the verdicts came down on April 29,’ he told a newspaper in 2005. ‘By August I was a Communist.’”
That’s a great example of a pivot point. He definitely had one here — towards communism. I can find nothing since to suggest an equivalent pivot away from communism.
One of Van Jones’s most infamous quotes gives us a red light warning to us as to where he really is now:
“I’m willing to forgo the cheap satisfaction of the radical pose for the deep satisfaction of radical ends.”
From Google A.I.:
“First coined in a 2005 interview… this quote encapsulates his transition from an open revolutionary… to a pragmatic organizer…”
And there it is. His soft pivot point: still firmly within the socialist/communist camp, but not so in-your-face about it. In other words: Lose the green dye in your hair along with the radical jargon, and put on some tailored clothes. You don’t have to stop being a socialist/communist, just shut-up about it and work the system.
And what has DSA admitted to recently? They are working the system. Their leadership has openly said they using the Democrat party to gain a foothold inside of government. But these young whippersnappers lack the old guard’s depth and discipline; they’re open about who they are. They’re like children with a new skill. “Watch me! Watch me!”
Below is the sum and substance of what Van Jones has said on CNN recently: It’s from his own Substack. These are his words:
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“I’m tired of being told that, to be a progressive, I now must swear allegiance to crazy ideas.”
In other words:“shut-up with the crazy talk.”
Note that his objection is to swearing allegiance to the ideas, not that they have the ideas. Further, and crucially, he doesn’t reject these ideas on moral grounds, only on their misalignment with Van’s definition of what it means to be progressive, which he surely knows — indeed we all know — is just the pragmatic term for being a socialist/communist.
He goes on:
“I’m a strong Democrat… rooted in progressive ideals and policies: criminal justice reform, Green New Deal, Medicare for All, free education, clean air and water. These are ideas I have fought for my entire adult life.
Like DiCaprio’s similar list, add them up and they obviously, overwhelmingly comprise socialism/communism.
He continues:
But some people in groups like the DSA are pushing an agenda FAR outside those ideals. Supporting Hamas is not progressive. “No police, no prisons, no borders” is not progressive. Celebrating the murder of Israeli civilians is not progressive. These ideas are REGRESSIVE.
It’s important to note that Van Jones is not an anarchist. (And neither is DSA, they’re just too young and stupid to know that some of their ideas are anarchistic.) Note, too, that Van doesn’t take specific issue with the murder of Israeli civilians. He takes the more cosmetic issue with DSA. celebrating the murder of Israeli civilians.
Continuing:
If there were no police or prisons, if anyone in your neighborhood could do whatever they wanted, while politicians cheered on terror groups — would that represent PROGRESS to you? No, that would be a step back. Those are REGRESSIVE ideas.” [Snip]
As I said before, he’s a socialist/communist, not an anarchist. He wants the power of the state, not the absence of it. And he’s willing to tolerate DSA if only they’d shut up about certain things yet still enact the agenda he supports. Heck, he’s practically begging them to be more “pragmatic.”
Van Jones and DSA are both chameleons. He’s just a different color than DSA. He has not outright rejected any of these candidates. He has not rejected them wholesale. He has not said he would not vote for them. He’s merely frustrated that they are making potential advocacy of them hard. That he’s willing to tolerate them at all makes this a tactical pose, not a principled one.
Support for Hamas should be a huge red line for anyone with a conscience, and DSA, by Van’s own admission, supports Hamas. There is no such thing as being “little bit pregnant” with Hamas. They are a blood-thirsty, barbaric, truly evil terrorist group. Supporting them at all is like saying Hitler was evil but he liked dogs so maybe he wasn’t all bad. For normals, there is no moral universe in which a “but” can come in a sentence involving Hamas or Hitler. None.
For that reason, and all the foregoing, it is therefore safe to conclude that Van Jones will not do anything meaningful to hurt DSA. Not after an entire lifetime of advocating for 90% of what they want. He will not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
So, no, Van, no matter what you say on Substack or CNN, these are your ideological children. And after all the slippery, pretty words are spoken, and you are alone in the voting booth, you’ll pull for them …
… because you built that.
M. Walter blogs at www.mwalterwriter.com. There, she publishes “The Lunatic Left Series” a (near) daily curation of just enough lefty news items to keep you up to date on what the they are up to without having to go hip deep into their toxic brew. You’re welcome;)
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Image: Senate Democrats, via Wikimedia Commons // CC BY 2.0 Deed