“Those Who Cannot Remember The Past Are Doomed To Repeat It”

Monday, July 6, 2026

Alternate title – “There Is No Such Thing As A Free Ride.”  Alternate title – “Get Off My Lawn You Young Whippersnapper.”  As Democratic primary after Democratic primary has returned communists for congressional candidates, I looked at my wife last week and said, “It is as if the Soviet Union never existed.”  It has only been about 30 years since that scourge died a spasmic death, but I guess in today’s world 30 years is a very long time.  My perspective may be somewhat unique as I was actually in the Soviet Union for the first spasm (the failed coup attempt on Gorbachev) but while the young find history boring for those of us that lived it it is quite vivid.  It needs be remembered.

The president chose his July 4 remarks to give a full-throated condemnation of communism and the Left has reacted with its now typically undiscriminating eye.  Choosing to take on communism on that occasion and in that setting was, clearly, a political choice.  He was obviously fighting the mid-terms on an occasion and in a situation where less political and more unifying remarks were, perhaps, more appropriate.  But that does not rob the remarks he did give of their truth, his earthy rhetoric notwithstanding.  Truth the left-leaning press, and apparently a lot of Democrats, have decided to leave unacknowledged because, blinded by Trump hatred, they cannot sort wheat and chaff.

The ensuing debate has moved memories of my Soviet Union sojourns front of mind.  At first I decided I should just let them lay, as I am indeed an old curmudgeon and no one wants to listen to the rantings of an old fart.  But then someone I know on Facebook, someone older than me, someone whose memory should permit them to know better, put up a short and simple post, “When all else fails, recycle the Red Scare,” and then I knew I needed to speak up.

If you are wise, you know that my friend is referring to very specific, and unfortunate, events of the Cold War between ourselves and the Soviet Union.  “Red Scare” is a term used to refer to the unconscionable acts of Senator Joseph McCarthy and the Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950’s.  Again, only an undiscriminating eye, one that hates Trump to the exclusion of reason, would attempt to equate the president’s Mt. Rushmore remarks with anything resembling the activities of that period.

The facts about communism are plain and undeniable:

• It makes the most mundane luxurious.  When I was there, a simple pair of blue jeans could buy you most anything you wanted in trade.  I am not kidding – anything
• It makes the necessities of life rare.  When I was there, fresh produce at the state store resulted in lines blocks long when word got out.  That was in Moscow.  In more remote places fresh produce was simply unheard of.
• You had no choices.  I spoke to people who waited months to be assigned an apartment to live in.  They had no choice as to size or location.  They often ended up with horrific commutes because the state simply did not assign them a place to live near where they were assigned to work.
• I was there as a part of an Environmental Technology Exchange Delegation and visited Chernobyl.  That event was not an accident – it was a foreseeable outcome of a governmental system that crushed personal initiative and rewarded blind obedience.
• The Soviet state was as murderous as Hitler’s Germany.  Those murders often included Jews.  Antisemitism was rampant – and openly expressed.
• Religion of any sort was rare, and where practiced, as a visitor I was not permitted to see it.

I could go on like this for a very long time.  Communism does not work by lifting up the downtrodden – it just crushes the successful.  But even that is not entirely true – it redefines success in terms of towing the party line and the rewards for success are, at best, meager.

The political, theoretical and philosophical debate surrounding socialist and communist systems can go on forever.  Such systems seem, on paper, utopian.  My purpose here is to point out that in very real, practical and directly observed terms there is no Utopia.  It does not exist.  No such scheme ever works.  History has proven that to be the case.

The president has a point, his poor choice of venue, setting and rhetoric notwithstanding.  We will be most unwise as a nation if we do not heed it.