not by the west and by the decent. fellow and welcome to cross talk where all things considered peter lavelle can socialism bring about a radiant future a growing number of voters seem to think so what do these voters and some members of congress mean by socialism free stuff for all the state controlling the means of production no borders. why are so many falling out of love with capitalism.

ross talking socialism i'm joined by my guest steve malzberg in new york he is a conservative political commentator and in washington we have i been ill and he is the senior fellow at the independent institute and author of the forthcoming book war and the road presidency all right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime and i always appreciate it steve let me go to you first here i mean poll after poll. indicate that there's a growing appreciation even wanting of something that's called socialism now at the outset i'm not particularly sure they know what socialism is ok maybe like i said in my introduction they just want free stuff they want free education they want open borders they want. free medical care they want everything which i find really bizarre if you want an open border person and you want to have this what they call socialism well then i guess most of the world is going to pack up their bags and move to the united states where they'll have this radian future and i'm using that

term obviously for a reason because that was what the soviet union tried to create and did not what do you think accounts for this attraction this so louer of socialism go ahead steve. well i think you know donald trump said in his state of the union america will never become a socialist nation there is an attraction especially when you take one of the ingredients or promise is that the socialists are making free you know health care medicare for all as they call it and that gets overwhelming support but when you rephrase the question and let people know hey you're going to have to have an increase of your increase in taxes to pay for it the support goes down hey you're not going to be able to choose your doctor keep your doctor keep your insurance or that you currently have that support goes way down again so you are right on target people don't know what it entails they like the concept of free but again not everybody likes the concept of free i would say

a majority of americans would want one socialism i would say there's a hardcore leftist base that's on board with this and college students who aren't doing as well and you know and their appeal with the appeal of free stuff is appealing and i'm in the same question to you and obviously you know if you look at these poll numbers it's the millennium olds that are seem to be attracted by this and i suppose. you could look at the fact that we have a younger generation now that is not doing better than their parents that this is a unprecedented moment in american history if you take with the exception of the great depression but you know there's a lot of aspiring people there saying that you know the current economy isn't working for them and probably won't work for them either do you think that's one of the reasons for the allure of socialism as they understand it anyway go ahead i've been in washington yes well capitalism has cycles and whenever there's

a recession or depression i mean we saw it in the one nine hundred thirty s. . when the government increased a lot of these programs didn't have a rhyme or reason he was just throwing spaghetti at the wall hoping some. thing woodworker stick lyndon johnson did the same thing in the great society although he had a better economy when he did it but i think my own view is that this talk of socialism which is really democratic socialism it's not hard core socialism socialism by definition is nationalizing in our streets and we had some of that under the bush administration the obama administration because of the risk last recession in two thousand and seven two thousand and eight and i think that's probably what triggered this this this. movement because i think a lot of people saw that the capitalist system was faltering because it was such a severe worldwide recession and it was actually caused by the government but of

course people don't. you know people don't see that they say that well government caused the problem we need more government intervention you know we had the. we had you know the financial regulations that were put in we had the socialism bush nationalized insurance company obama. least for a while and nationalize the car companies that's true socialism now bernie sanders the first indication was this was in the last campaign in two thousand and sixteen when bernie sanders did not disavow the socialist label but he's not really a true socialist he's of industries although you can say that medicare. for all is nationalization of health insurance industry but that's sort of a limited nationalization usually it's regulated but regulation of the i mean i don't i don't i don't you guys obviously have been using the term free stuff and stephen when you react to it nothing is free ok i mean you've got to give up

a lot through the free stuff right and i and that's what i worry about i mean this this green new deal i mean it's a ridiculous document i mean i really people that. it wasn't written by experts let's put it that way it was written by a poet stated read marx ok here but the green new deal is sensually is the nationalization of the entire economy and if you look at camilla harris and other people like that with health care for all they're talking about outlawing private outlawing private insurance i mean that's why we're making this program here because words do have meaning and i tell everyone that i have a conversation on this topic is that i've lived in eastern europe communist eastern europe for many years in the one nine hundred eighty s. so i got a firsthand taste of what it's like and there weren't any cappuccinos and there weren't any birkenstocks ok they were actually very poor places that were or more or less stagnant ok no dinosaurs i mean this is what really bothers me capitalism

is a lot of problems but it i would call that the financial ization of capitalism and that's a different issue go ahead steve. now i was going to say you know i don't think the people who are now with all due respect to our to adore the gas and he's right but i don't think the people who are involved in this now who are embracing socialism now and this free stuff are thinking back to you know what the bush administration did with the auto industry and the banking industry above they don't care about that they view they do view corporations as evil and they drove out of their deal in new york and they applauded each other they slapped each other on the back they took over at twenty five thousand jobs away from new york and a bustling benefits to the economy and they said yeah we got that evil corporation that here they want to nationalize they don't want people to own their own businesses they don't want corporations to make profits that's all part of this be aware of that it's not just free stuff it's taken everything away from the

corporations who are evil so it's very frightening and you know you talk about how the green new deal was written donald trump calls it a a poorly written high school to. paper i think is right and you're correct as well you know i've been a meanie if you look at these grand grandiose plans i mean i always i'm very worried about the size of these programs here and the bureaucratization of it and i think it will erode our rights because it seems to me with the kind of things people are talking about are telling us that will have far fewer choices to make and i think that's an important part of our culture and civic nature is to be able to have choices that seem to me they want to limit these choices and i'm not convinced that these people i mean look at the great society i mean the great society had so much goodwill i believe that big great hollywood films about it you know but most of it didn't do word to ok and you created cyclical poverty i mean

look at what happened to the black family as a result of the great society was it was a disaster and we're all living with that today so good intentions not to when i look for the door ivan go ahead and launch into it yeah i think a lot of the programs don't work and i think the new deal didn't cure the depression i think certainly the war on poverty didn't do that any time the government does a war on something prop yeah verty drugs whatever it's very doesn't work it's usually counterproductive and they waste a lot of money and distort the market and i think you know what they should do if they're you know if you take a more freedom and ask approach to these things you should let the market work and then if you don't like the market then you then you can give people money and let them spend it in the market rather than creating all these pure bureaucratic programs but you know some people would even object to that but of course at the

where or or you know the true socialist or communist countries but i think certainly this is a this is a. path that we don't want to go on and i think right now this is confined primarily to the left wing of the democratic party but it could seek out into the to the national discourse and it may during the two thousand and twenty campaign we're going to talk about the second half here right before we go to the break here steve one of the things i keep coming across is that well they want the scandinavian model well then can that they're just lazy and they repeat what they hear on. c.n.n. and m.s.m. b c look at the economies in scandinavia they're not socialist in that sense as a matter of fact they're very they're very compassionate capitalists i mean the government does provide vouchers for families they can decide what school they go to they pay a lot of taxes these are much smaller economies and they have

a built in work ethic so i mean it's not what they think it is ok again this is this dreaming instead of really cracking the books and trying to figure out how something works because i'm open to good ideas i'm not ideologically closed like these people are last thirty seconds before we go to break steve you know you're absolutely right and they try to dress it up as best they can and and give you know these kinds of examples that don't hold water when you look into them and their answers don't hold water alexandria because you know court as a o c who is spearheading this new green deal in the socialism movement here the volunteers asked for specific she says specifics morning specific i guess twelve years or the car the world is going to go where you guys were today i love forget money for five hours these are say you won't trade for money you know i love the interview which he did here all right i'm going to jump in here we're going to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion and socialism

stay with r.t. . the maternity town the slums go in and you may never get out so those are the differences. by teenage gang rules here. no one on the mood of the mind. but. the navy will be. minus a murderer the spirit of. the band now it's looking for the yeah when i knew you. and melanie when not when.

you know i'm looking little. i see. you know world big part of the new lot and conspiracy it's time to wake up to dig deeper to be smarter we need to stop slamming the door on the back and shouting past each other it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for the middle for the troops the time is now we're watching closely watching the hawks. this is a stick from the water bottle found in the stomach of the fish the brand is part of the coca-cola company which sells millions of bottles of soda every day the idea

was that let's tell consumers there are the bad ones there the litter bugs are throwing us away industry should be blamed for all this waste the company has long promised to reuse the plastic. it's difficult. to imagine that. there are classes. on your own special projects funded me. on that i knew that that is the end of it for the team but for now the mountains of waste only grow. with gold make this manufacture consent to stick to the public will. when the ruling classes protect themselves. with the famous merry go round be the one percent.

we can all middle of the room sick. welcome back to crossfire we're all things are considered i'm peter lavelle remind you we're discussing socialism. ok let's go back to washington here i mean you see you mentioned something that was really kind of interesting to me when you talked about bernie sanders in two thousand and sixteen and now we have seen the there but discourse the rhetoric go further further and further to the left here he was considered pretty lefty in two thousand and sixteen and that attracted a lot of attention and a lot of support ok and i think unfortunately the nomination was stolen from him by

the clinton clan here we could have had a much more interesting robust debate instead of talking about her damn emails all the time but i mean you know what you know when you look at bernie sanders now i mean he looks quite ma. is it really the trump effect that the trump to the range meant syndrome that is captured the left i mean on any single issue virtually you have to be against trump so trump is against socialism so we must be bored i mean this is kind of a childish reductionism but it seems to be in play go ahead in washington. well i think it is you know certainly there is a reaction to trump but you know bernie sanders many of these. ideas originated with him his campaign i mean they didn't originate but he popularized them in two thousand and sixteen and i think they've gone beyond that i also see some parallels with the ripoff elysium on the right because part of it's populist as well as socialist is that you know we've got i go against the establishment and in this case they're coming from the left rather than the right and

a lot of these anti-market policies are also exhibited by trump to some degree more pro-business by being pro-business and pro market are much different and so you see populism on but the right and the left the left is certainly but certainly reacting to some of trump's policies as well you know steve you know is. always seen now the leader of the democratic party and mean it seems to me that you know when she changes the tune everybody dances ok i mean i know that this is a ploy you know fox news adores her because they see the democrats committing political suicide over her i mean she's cute she's adorable but she says dumb as a door knob ok and but she's really being caught up but she's being talked up you know but now it's not so funny because what they're doing is that she's the new trump you know she's the new magnet of attention where they think that you know the

people will sneer at or you know she looks great she dresses great she's you know cooking doing you know on social media and she's the boss and all that i mean she's perfect for social media and television but she is affecting the agenda and the fox news types are give fueling her on and i'm not sure that's a pretty good idea because that's what c.n.n. and i miss and b c did to trump go ahead steve. i post a lot of stories about her especially lately her campaign manager there's a. a violation that was filed though if you are breaking the law with when it came to how her money was handled that she doesn't live where she's claimed she lived all kinds of inconsistency is that she takes you over and cab service where the subway is two blocks away when of course she's the big green person so i post all that and people say back to me stop talking about it or ignore her let her go away but she's not going to go away one way or another i do think she has amazing

influence in the democratic party and i think we're seeing that with some of the anti-semitism accusations against fellow freshman congressman that one in particular congressman no more and they all see came out in defense of her and the leadership of the democratic party seemingly backed down and said we're not going to take all morrow off any committees we're going to have a watered down resolution i don't know why she has all this poll she won in a district where hardly anybody came out to vote yet in that particular election she won fair and square but nobody came out to vote and now you would think she won the most popular election ever i don't know but she should not be ignored she cannot be ignored as dumb as she is as out there if she is as crazy as she is she will have followers you have a little you don't mean to say with you for a second here stephen on the on the plus side of the ledger i enjoy watching their identity politics cave in on itself that's

a really good indication that it is right now i mean let me go back to you in washington. this is. creating rifts within the democratic party and of course the g.o.p. is this loves is here i mean how are they going to be able to. bring this rift to an end because there's going to be the the in particular with bernie sanders if he's not given a fair shot they're going to say they were cheated again and those that voted for trump. in the end as they as a revenge vote this might happen again people going to feel that they were their vote didn't count i mean i think that democrats as crazy as they are and i mean this is a you know a three ring circus with these candidates out there you know bedo or beat zero or whatever his name is and then you know you've got spartacus and you've and you've got pocahontas out there i mean this is entertaining as can be but ideologically

speaking that's going to be tough to keep their coalition together go ahead i've been. yeah i think the danger for the democrats is that they get pulled so far to the left and some people like a c. who are not even running or helping to pull in there and some of the other freshman as well but. you know they have the same problem i think as the republicans had in the last election and that is they have a lot of candidates and there's a lot of different views and of course on the democratic side they're to the left of the electorate and in the republican party in two thousand and sixteen was to the right of the electorate but you know it depends on who the democrats put up but it's also the next election as most presidential elections unfortunately for trump i think are a referendum on the. current administration so it ought to be very interesting i'm not saying a really far left candidate could beat trump but if the democrats democrats also

want to get rid of so they may try to muzzle these people palosi has already tried to muzzle a o.c.a. and as you point out sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't she has a lot of charisma she knows how to what a social media she's very telegenic and of course she doesn't know anything as you point out but that you know that that doesn't stop people on both sides from getting on t.v. so it's you know it's going to be it's going to be very interesting to see what happens in the election you know steve if you look at happened prior to the civil war you had the whig party was a dominant party and in in a short number of years you had the emergence of the republican party because you had a crisis in the country we had herbert hoover was not reelected because of the great depression what i'm getting at here is that there are these moments in time where people are willing to experiment and i'm wondering if the democrats are going to go

out on the limb here because they seem all intimidated. again their identity politics crushes their into intellectual abilities they all stand in fear i saw all these you know how many congressmen you know seasoned folks you know standing around always see when she's got that green document there and there it was like she was holding mao's red book and they're all nodding their heads i mean what are you guys doing i mean you're just you know you're fighting over the seating order on top of the titanic i mean this is why i think that you know trump but you know not because he's particularly been effective as president cause i don't think squad steve. they are the gift that keeps on giving you're absolutely right not to mention we haven't even talk because it doesn't fit in but the stance on abortion the radical stance on abortion that that party has i mean trump could just pick off topic after topic after topic and you know there's such a different party bill clinton when hillary was running that was four years ago how do apologize for welfare reform for don't ask don't tell for the crime bill you had

to apologize for his biggest achievements they are an odd unrecognizable party and you know they're talking about well of five gets in and he'll have to apologize for things that happened under obama that's how far off the left clip they've got in such a short amount of time you know i mean you know what they were it was the really it was the the blue wall. in other states that made the difference the last time could we see the same thing happen again because i am pretty sure the democrats go to michigan and minnesota and elsewhere that i'm pretty sure they're going to go this time ok i mean we've we've all been one form or another kind of made light of these ridiculous ideas on the left here but how do you think the heartland sees it because you know i think that the i'm from the midwest those are my origins ok unfortunately i spent a lot of time in california but i did survive the corrupting element there. i don't see socialism is being attractive at all i think they just want results and

actually. less government. agricultural. congressional districts they certainly want government help but it's necessary but not not over regulation and i don't think they want to become the ministry of agriculture in the future administration of a o c go ahead. yeah well i think you're right i'm originally from iowa and the people people there's a there's been always ben a resistance to socialism and radical labor unions throughout american history and i think the resistance is still there to some extent although with the new millennial. gens the people it's last in stone and i think one of the reasons as i pointed out was the deep recession that we had a while back and that they've grown up under and so this is probably one of the factors that's pushing that but i think certainly there's going to be all those

states are a little older up there than than other states and so i think there's plenty of reserve. that could go trump's way in those three states michigan pennsylvania wisconsin as numbers are very good there now but you know it's two years almost two years before the election so it's a lot of time to read re re re. calibrate there but you know he could conceivably win the same way as problem is that he he won about the only way he could win last time and he's got a pretty much replicate that the next time thirty second steve closer and closer program out. the good news is you know everybody says hillary clinton won the popular vote by six by three million votes if you take away new york and california which she won by six million donald trump won the other forty eight states by three million so that's that optimistic note to end on if you are rooting for donald trump again and he's going to motivate their left is going to motivate people who

didn't even vote in the first place to come out and vote for trying i think this time around i think their turnout will be huge and we got plenty of time many think some against the new york and in washington and thanks to our viewers for watching us here in our d.c. you next time and remember. my son doing drugs my nephew drugs my sister just with doing drugs it was like an epidemic of drug abuse america's public enemy number one in the united states is drug abuse. and the users in the prison population who are we started treating

sick people people who are addicted to these drugs like criminals while i was on the hill. the war on drugs. there are countless numbers of people who are in prison for. the drug trade it's a lot watching your children grow up and miss you in waves and say by day. this is just it doesn't get easier. join me every thursday on the alex simon show and i'll be speaking to us from the world of politics. i'm showbusiness i'll see you then.

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