MARCH 9, 2016

The socialist threat of the 2016 Presidential Election can, and will, be overcome

WASHINGTON, DC, – "For years polls have shown that Americans have been losing trust in government and it's no wonder when you consider the state of employment these days, the sputtering economy and the out-of-control national debt. We haven't reached the crisis stage as yet, but we're heading for it in a fast and furious manner," according to Dan Weber, president of the Association of Mature American Citizens.

Weber said that it is easy enough to blame President Obama for the "mess we are in" but there is more to the story than that.

"Americans, in general, have always had a conservative, capitalistic outlook on life, but now we are seeing a disturbing flirtation with socialism. Even such admired Democrats who called the White House their home in the past - people such as Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Jack Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson - had great respect for the nation's heritage and traditions. They understood that workers need successful business leaders to provide jobs and that by going too far to the left leaves the nation at risk by making it harder to fuel the economy and to provide stability and meaningful employment."

Weber said he was disturbed to learn of a new survey that came out recently indicating the millennial generation, young people under 30 years of age, is being swayed in large numbers by individuals such as Bernie Sanders who unabashedly promote a socialist agenda.

"It took the Soviet Union 70 years to be crushed under the weight of progressive share-the-wealth notions; you can bet that it would take less time than that for the U.S. to succumb to the vagaries of Sanders' Communist-like agenda."

But, don't give up. He said he believes the socialist threat Sanders' poses is "so scary" it might just serve to reinvigorate the nation's conservative base. Remember, he noted, the failures in the past of socialist ideologues to foist their liberal agenda on voters, gives the base cause to become more active in the political process going forward.

A British political analyst, Nile Gardiner, perhaps put it best, Weber noted: "Conservatism is thriving in America today because liberty, freedom and individual responsibility are at the heart of its ideology, one that rejects the foolish notion that government knows best. And its strength owes a great debt to the conviction and ideals of Ronald Reagan, who always believed that America's best days are ahead of her, and for whom the notion of decline was unacceptable. As the Gipper famously put it in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in 1988: 'Those who underestimate the conservative movement are the same people who always underestimate the American people'."