During the credit crisis of 2008, Rahm Emanuel, President-Elect Barack Obama’s appointed Chief of Staff, counseled the newly elected president to not let “a serious crisis go to waste.” According to Emanuel, a crisis provides political leaders with “an opportunity to do things they could not even have thought of before.” For instance, the Great Depression provided an opportunity for Franklin Delano Roosevelt to attempt to transform our representative republic into a socialist state. The American public at that time, caught in the throes of financial disaster, were more than willing to surrender their freedoms in exchange for their financial survival. In light of Roosevelt’s example and Emanuel’s advice, it is no coincidence that Barack Obama entered the White House promising America a “New New Deal.”

Totalitarianism is always birthed in crisis. Despots come to power by pretending to be the savior of the people during perilous times of unprecedented perilousness. Why, for instance, are today’s progressives promoting their “Green New Deal” under the pretense of saving our planet from the throes of climate change? There is a method to their madness. They understand, as all despots do, that to subjugate a people one must first persuade them that their survival is at stake and that the government alone can save them. Once embraced as the savior of the people, the government, with the people’s permission, can proceed to enslave the people.

I’ve predicted for years that democratic socialism is the Biblically predicted end-time spirit of antichrist that would rise, crest, and break over our planet in the perilous times of the last days. My initial public prognostication of this perceived Biblical no-brainer made me the butt of many a joke and left my unpopular prediction lampooned as a most preposterous proposition. However, no one is laughing anymore and my once thought preposterous prognostication is suddenly seen as probable, if not impending. After all, the current leader of the Democrat presidential primary is an avowed democratic socialist. The fact that millions of Americans are supporting the presidential aspirations of Bernie Sanders serves as incontrovertible proof that democratic socialism is currently crouching at the door of our country.

Many present-day Americans find solace in the assurance of today’s political pundits that the majority of our electorate is unwilling to go to the polls and elect a democratic socialist as their president. Such political punditry is proven precarious, however, when one ponders either the eventual inevitability of Bernie’s young Bros becoming the majority of our electorate or the possibility of our present electorate being frightened into the despotic arms of democratic socialism by some crisis. For instance, what if the coronavirus becomes pandemic and our government usurps dictatorial power over our lives in order to protect us from contracting the deadly disease? Furthermore, what if such a pandemic produces an economic crisis that threatens our financial institutions, as well as us individually? Would the American populace not swiftly surrender its freedoms to the government in exchange for a government guarantee of its physical and financial survival?

I’m afraid most modern-day Americans have no idea of the precariousness of our present-day predicament. All it will take to push us over the edge into end-time despotism is a few more narcissistic numbskulls at the polls or some national crisis, like a pandemic disease or an economic depression. If the latter occurs, it won’t make much difference whether the occupant of the Oval Office is Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders. Both will lead the government to usurp control over our lives under the assumption of saving our lives; and most Americans will be glad to surrender their liberty to a government guaranteeing their safety and survival. 

That Donald Trump occupies the Oval Office rather than Bernie Sanders, should not be misconstrued as providing us with a more sure national footing in the event of a national crisis. History teaches us of another populace conservative leader who ascended to the helm of his nation by promising to make his nation great again. His popularity and rise to power was precipitated in no small part by his opposition to the liberal democratic socialists of his day. Furthermore, it was an economic crisis, among other crises, that provided him with the opportunity to usurp control over the Fatherland as its Fuhrer. Of course, his name was Adolph Hitler, a man initially championed as Germany’s deliverer, but in the end condemned as its destroyer.