At first blush, the George Floyd riots appear to have little to do with socialism. After all, socialism is about government control, while the riots — instigated by leftist agitators affiliated with antifa — claim to oppose the “fascism” of police abuses. Yet bestselling author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza explains the connection in his new book released Tuesday, United States of Socialism: Who’s Behind It. Why It’s Evil. How to Stop It (a documentary is coming soon). In an interview with PJ Media, D’Souza explained how socialism morphed into an identity politics movement, how it relates to antifa, and why the coronavirus pandemic was a terrifying taste of what socialism has in store for America.
While President Donald Trump has rightly condemned socialism in his re-election campaign, D’Souza warned that the struggle against socialism is much bigger than the 2020 election, as important as it is.
“Three of our vital institutions have become rotted to the core. This is probably the greatest problem facing the country. This is bigger than Trump’s election because it affects every election,” he told PJ Media. Socialism’s influence in academia, the media, and Hollywood has divided America and laid the groundwork for the deadly riots of recent days. “Academia is the theory and antifa is the practice,” he said.
D’Souza noted that two men arrested in New York for throwing Molotov cocktails were lawyers — fairly well-off and well-educated. He insisted that this is not “ironic” but the natural outworking of the Marxist influence on education, the media, and Hollywood.
Identity socialism
Yet Karl Marx focused on economics, not issues of race, sex, or other forms of identity politics. D’Souza’s book traces at least three different forms of socialism and identifies “identity socialism” as the key threat to America today.
Marx intended for socialism to create a “harmonious community,” like the voluntary communities that sprouted up in France, Germany, and England, the author told PJ Media. “Those communities weren’t forced. The state was not involved at all.”
D’Souza contrasted Marx’s socialism and “identity socialism” with the “unification socialism” throughout Scandinavia. “In the United States, there’s a lot of demonization of the rich. You don’t see that in Scandinavia. They’re not denouncing rich Swedes. The assumption is, ‘We’re all in the same nest.’”
