This past Saturday, February 22, marked a special day for those who enjoy socialist "astrology." There was an alignment between past and present that serves to remind us of where we were as a nation, and where we are now in terms of how we, the American people, view a central government controlling nearly every aspect of our lives.
Forty-years ago, the U.S. hockey team defeated the Soviet Union at the Winter Olympics held in Lake Placid, New York. The "Miracle on Ice" came at the beginning of the end of the Cold War, in a nation that was about to sweep aside the "malaise" of the Carter presidency and elect Ronald Reagan. Soon, he would put an American boot on the throat of the USSR and force its collapse.
American patriotism was never more evident, save for perhaps at the end of WWII, when our collection of amateur hockey players defeated a team of Red Army professionals who had been selected as youth to go out and win one for mother Russia. It was good against evil; it was freedom against tyrants.
While some Americans remembered and celebrated this victory over socialist evil on February 22, other Americans in the state of Nevada were all but singing the Soviet national anthem. Those people had just handed self-avowed democratic socialist Senator Bernie Sanders a victory in their state caucuses.
Sanders' victory in Nevada makes him the clear front-runner in a field of uniformly collectivist candidates, albeit some more discreetly than others. FiveThirtyEight forecast has him with a 39 percent chance to win, highest among the current field.
How did this happen? How could it be that a nation that practically wrapped itself in its own flag only 40 years ago, after beating back the living, breathing embodiment of socialism, is now voting for a man who loved the old Soviet Union so much he and his wife honeymooned there? Despite Sanders' claims, rather than the proudly capitalist country of Denmark, his model nation is the Soviet one. But Sanders' supporters aren't Soviet citizens. What gives?
The age difference between Sanders and the bulk of his supporters tells you what you need to know. These are a group of petulant, spoiled children who do not have a shred of respect for being able to live in the greatest nation ever established, nor for enjoying more freedom than have 99.9 percent of all the humans in history.
For decades, we have neglected the duty to teach our children about the exceptionalism of America. Instead, we have surrendered our schools' curriculum to far-left—even Marxist—professors and their textbooks of choice, like By the People: A History of the United States. The very predictable result is that we now have millions of Americans who have been taught that America is an exploitative, racist nation whose root was long ago "poisoned" by capitalism.
They are, in a word, ungrateful.
They hold in their hands a smartphone, a product of American ingenuity and free markets, and they use it to post anti-American revolutionary ideas on social media, another product first imagined and brought to life right here in "evil" America. They then use their handheld super computers to access the most sophisticated financial transaction system in the world, another product of American ingenuity and ambition, to make a $1 donation to the candidate who wants to "Bern" it all down.
None of them are voting to give away their own stuff (at least not knowingly). They are voting to take away more of yours. They want your money from higher taxes. They want to take away your medical insurance. They want the gas in your cars. They want your wealth. They want your freedom and your self-determination. And they want you to give it to them.
Check that. Giving it to them would be voluntary. They want to take it.
Everything that Sanders wants to do embraces the kinds of things that work the least in government. They want socialized medicine; I give you the Department of Veterans Affairs. They want the government to control the supply of energy; I give you the gas lines and foreign energy dependence of the '70s. They want to "soak the rich" in taxes; I give you the states of California, New York and Illinois, where entrepreneurs and high net-worth producers are leaving for states with lower taxes.
My friend, the "great one" Mark Levin, recently took to Twitter and stated clearly that there is no reason for pro-American Trump supporters to be excited about Sanders doing so well. Levin's message is a dire warning against the "conventional wisdom" on both the right and the left: that Sanders is so extreme that his nomination would mean an easy win for President Donald Trump in November.
I, too, reject the notion that Sanders would be easy to defeat. Any candidate of a major political party starts out with a baseline 30 to 40 percent chance of becoming president, minimum. His following is real, and his supporters are passionate and motivated. And remember, he is buoyed by a whole generation of American ingrates.
There is no reason to celebrate so many Americans wanting a revolution that destroys the most successful, foundational aspects of our nation. That it's got this far represents nothing less than a national tragedy.
Sportscaster Al Michaels asked 40 years ago, "Do you believe in miracles?" His answer was a famous "Yes!" Sanders supporters don't believe in miracles; they believe in revolution. One initially voted for—but eventually, as with all socialist revolutions, one taken by force.
We dismiss the Sanders revolution at our own peril.
Charlie Kirk is the author of the upcoming book The MAGA Doctrine: The Only Ideas That Will Win the Future (Harper Collins, March 3) and host of The Charlie Kirk Show.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
