Honest question

[Aviation Pro]

Here's an honest question, but a little exposition first. All the red state and like-minded dolts always ask, "When has any country that tried Communism ever succeeded or been left as anything more than a ruined shell?" The answer, of course, is never (China is an autocracy, not a communist country in spite of all the fear mongering).

So, here's the question, when has any country that elected a populist ever succeeded or been left as anything but a ruined shell?

Bloated Tick would have done the same to our country.

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1. Wouldn't autocrat rather than populist be a better term?

[Aviation Pro]

2. They all start as populists

They don’t start to fly their autocrat freak flags until they consolidate their power.

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7. I don't know. LBJ was a populist in his days of trying to get...

electrification for the Texas hill country he represented.

[TexasBushwhacker]

3. I won't play that game

The United States has never come close to being a communist country, therefore the question is meaningless. No one has ever suggested that the government take over the means of production. No one has ever suggested that companies can't be privately held.

If they ask, are there any countries that have Social Democracies that are successful, I would give the Scandinavian countries as an example. They have democratically elected government officials, privately held businesses and a well funded social safety net. Even many European countries have tax payer funded healthcare, schooling through college, etc.

[Aviation Pro]

4. Note, I didn't write socialism

Did I?

[TexasBushwhacker]

6. What I meant was, I won't play that game with a RWNJ

I would simply answer that communism means that the government controls the means of production and no businesses are privately help, so the question is meaningless in terms of the United States.

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8. Communism is a form of socialism.

[Caliman73]

5. The problem is that nothing in its "pure" form has every existed.

Teddy Roosevelt used populist rhetoric, as did FDR, as did many other leaders that we consider to be good leaders. Salvador Allende was a populist, but he got killed. Lula in Brazil was a populist and reformer, but he got framed up and deposed by a right wing group.

Trump is not a populist. He is a demagogue who used whatever rhetorical style he needed to get into power. He didn't even really care about the elites who backed him, other than knowing he had to deliver economically for them. If Trump ever studied anything or anyone in history, it was Hitler, another narcissist who began to equate himself with the State and "the People" even if they never really cared about either.

When you organize societies, I don't think that it is possible for one political or economic system to predict and react to all of the different facets of human thought and behavior. There has to be a mix but your goals have to be clear as well. What are the priorities? How do you deal with greed, envy, and other human excesses? How to you best distribute the activities and fruits of human labor?

Trump was one of the worst presidents in US history and arguably the absolute worst in the last 100 years.

If red state people ask the "communism" question, ask them to define communism first so that you are sure you are talking about the same thing. The Soviet Union operated on a communist model, but was statist and there were significant splits between what Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky wanted to do. The way Mao and Stalin implemented communism in the USSR and China were also very different.

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9. Well stated.

[moondust]

10. China is a one-party system.

And that party is...

Thus, it's probably safe to call it a communist country.