To survive, Trump voters in small Florida town turn to socialism, and it's working. It's okay this time.

Nothing is more convenient than conservative hypocrisy. But remember, they're the real Americans with a much higher calling than their "liberal" enemies.  

Let's go to Baldwin, Fla. where Mayor Sean Lynch gave town residents a taste of socialism in their government owned grocery store. What-a-ya know. 

Now, all of a sudden, their idea of socialism isn't really that kind of socialism, not if they can save time and help their town survive. 

Good ol' capitalism decided there wasn't enough money to be made in rural Baldwin, so see ya later, time for them to wither away and die. Best system in the world, right?

You really can't make this stuff up:

WaPo: People in Baldwin, Fla., (saw) the only grocery store in town shut down. Abandoned by mainstream supermarkets whose business models don’t have room for low profit margins, Baldwin is trying something different. At the Baldwin Market, all of the employees are on the municipal payroll, from the butcher to the cashiers.

In many rural, conservative communities struggling to hang on to their remaining residents, ideological arguments about the role of government tend to be cast aside as grocery stores shutter because of population decline and competition from superstores.
By definition, a collectively owned, government-run enterprise like the Baldwin Market is inherently socialist. 

Oh, but these rabid Trump voters have a good excuse and higher calling, so it's alright...

But Lynch, who governs a town where 68 percent of residents voted for Donald Trump in 2016, doesn’t see it that way. From his point of view, the town is just doing what it’s supposed to do: providing services to residents who already pay enough in taxes.

“We take the water out of the ground, and we pump it to your house and charge you,” he told The Post. “So what’s the difference with a grocery store?”

But socialism is a disaster and a failure where ever it's been tried?

So far, though, the experiment has been a success. The town council had hoped to take in $3,500 a day, and sales have routinely exceeded that, Lynch says. “Fundamentally, what you have is people that have lived in these rural communities all their lives, and they want these rural communities to survive,” Procter said. “And they realize that without access to food, they’re not going to survive.”

You can say the same for health care? But socialism this time is okay. Got it.

Matt Bruenig, the founder of the People’s Policy Project, a socialist think tank, likens it to having a “public option” for health care. “The idea that a municipality should have to beg private companies to provide basic goods and services to its people is absurd. And being able to say ‘we will just do it ourselves’ is very powerful.”

Republicans Scared of supposed rising Left Wing violence.

The anti-science, anti-education Republican Party are really at a disadvantage when it comes to physics, specifically this part of Newton's Law: "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."

Things were just fine when armed Second Amendment thugs bullied women's anti-gun groups; armed losers scared the daylights out of families in fast food restaurants; those 20 kids and 5 adults mowed down in an elementary school proved we should have had armed guards everywhere; and militia groups formed to take back our country from an power mad unworthy black president.



Bunkerville's Cliven Bundy was a real American hero, and mental health issues explained the shooting of Democratic Rep. Gabby Giffords and not the telescopic site markings on a map from Sarah Palin's website. In fact, the right wings pollster Rasmussan Report just posted this unsettling result that proves radicalized conservatives believe they can do no wrong:

Fifty-five percent (55%) of Americans agree politics is to blame for the incident that left one of the GOP’s top House leaders in critical condition and aren’t writing it off as just random violence.

By comparison, just 28% said the shooting of Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and the killing of six others in Arizona in January 2011 was the result of political anger.

The baseball shooting that targeted Republicans is an example of Newton's law, and Republicans are freaked out about it. But wait, liberals don't like guns...what happened?

Those who track extremism say that while there are a few far-left groups that raise red flags, their numbers remain small.

Much of the conservatives' anger has been aimed at "Antifa" — short for "anti-fascists." Antifa are loosely affiliated groups of mostly young people; "People are desperate," says one masked counter-protester, a student at Evergreen State who gave his name as Felix. "They see the government turning back to regressive Reaganomics and racist undertones and rhetoric, so once they start kicking 25 million people off health care, then you're going to start seeing riots."

Mark Pitcavage, a senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism: "The far left is very active in the United States, but it hasn't been particularly violent for some time." 

He says the numbers between the groups don't compare.

"In the past 10 years when you look at murders committed by domestic extremists in the United States of all types, right-wing extremists are responsible for about 74 percent of those murders. You have to go back to the 1970s to find the last big cycle of far-left extremism in the U.S.” 

Here's an important mind blowing thought:

Pitcavage says Wednesday's shooting attack ... is a warning sign. He is especially concerned because the shooter apparently was not particularly extreme in his political ideas; his views were seemingly in the mainstream left.

"One act does not a trend make. But I am concerned that, in this highly polarized and divided society, more people who have stances that fall within the mainstream, on the left and right alike, may consider political violence an attractive option."

Domestic terrorism experts say that concern is only heightened by the fact that the line between what's considered mainstream and what's considered fringe is becoming increasingly blurred.

From NPR audio, the complete report:

The Rise of Right Wing Socialism and Scott Walker's vision to Rule the World with "Steel in the face of our enemies."

History is dotted by little men overcompensating with grandiose dreams of world conquests and political dominance. Scott Walker thinks he's next in line, even saying the public doesn't matter:



Are we witnessing a new rising threat from, guess who, Scott Walker? In the words of Han Solo, "I've got a bad feeling about this..."

Reuters-Scott Walker on Iran: "This is not a country we should be doing business with ... The United States needs a foreign policy that puts steel in the face of our enemies."

"Steel in the face of our enemies?" Who says that, seriously, except maybe comic book super-villains like Magneto, Red Skull and Doctor Doom.

Jeb Bush criticized Walker, saying "That sounds great, but maybe you ought to check in with your allies first. You might want to have your team in place before you take an act like that."

Walker's campaign foreign policy adviser Robert C. O'Brien passed along Walker's dark threatening knee-jerk foreign policy vision for world conquest:

"We don’t need more information, we don’t need to wait to confirm the next Secretary of State, we need decisive leadership and we need it now. This won’t be easy, but when America leads, and has a strong president with clear priorities who believes in American strength, the rest of the world will follow." 

Holy crap. Was Walker's adviser exaggerating? In Walker's own words...:

"I believe that a president shouldn’t wait to act until they put a cabinet together or an extended period of time. I believe they should be prepared to act on the very first day they take office. It’s very possible – God forbid, but it’s very possible – that the next president could be called to take aggressive actions, including military action, on the first day in office. And I don’t want a president who is not prepared to act on day one. So, as far as me, as far as my position, I’m going to be prepared to be president on day one.”

CNN's Dana Bash even out debated Walker on his ridiculous plan to dump out of the Iran deal. Walker was a deer in headlights, surprised and stumped: 

Warning to the Rest of the Country: From what we've seen in Wisconsin, it's what Walker isn't telling you that you should be afraid of, like when he "dropped the bomb," Act 10. People have noticed, as reported by Paul Fanlund in the Cap Times:

Only Walker's favorite union gets raise!

Dane County Executive Joe Parisi (said), "I think (Wisconsin Republicans) made a deliberate decision that their main goal, despite the stated goal of creating jobs, was to destroy their enemies."  Ah, but Republicans hate Dane County for the way we vote. And for them, politics, not the good of Wisconsin constituents, always comes first.

Walker knows only one strategy; "divide and conquer," an actual comment he made about breaking up labor. But the tactic worked so well that it ended up not just dividing the unions but also every citizen in the state, politically and socially. He even thinks having a divided state is healthy, which is why he no problem doing the same thing for the rest of the country...and the world apparently:

Walker would also be more confrontational with both Russia over its aggression against Ukraine and against China, for the territorial pressures Beijing is putting on U.S. allies in the South China Sea.

Scarier still? Among conservative voters, Walker is a moderate?

Republican pollster Frank Luntz, placed Walker's views on national security in the middle of conservative thinking.

History is littered with authoritarian leaders like Scott Walker. Out of curiosity I did a search and came across an article in Scholastic, a news magazine for teens, that laid this all out in the simplest of terms. The first point about paralyzing government mirrors the GOP strategy today; also see what tough sanctions on Germany eventually produced (spoiler alert). Sorry to get a little conspiratorial: 

The National Socialists party had enough power to effectively paralyze Germany's democratic government, which had been in place since 1919. Ian Kershaw, a history professor at Sheffield University in England said: "Indeed, with the world now facing great tensions and instability, the question of whether such a monstrous dictator could again come to power and threaten the world seems more relevant than ever ... around the globe, skilled politicians have been able to manipulate populist, nationalist, or racist feelings to advance authoritarian rule." In recent years, President Vladimir Putin has gradually moved Russia in an authoritarian direction, "Whether you're looking at the Soviet Union or Germany, the move toward authoritarian dictatorship doesn't necessarily make the country more secure, and the cost to the population is very, very high." According to Kershaw, around the globe, skilled politicians have been able to manipulate populist, nationalist, or racist feelings to advance authoritarian rule.

Right Wing Socialism: What we're seeing from Republicans: disdain for business that isn't a part of the party plan or power structure; a powerful undercurrent of politicized religion; like-thinking on marriage; gay and minority vilification; nationalism; income disparity that puts a powerful chosen few in charge of everything. It's a "right wing socialist" agenda. To be honest, I didn't even know right wing socialism existed until I looked up the concept, and the tell-tale signs were all there.

The term used by right-wing movements and politicians to describe support for social solidarity and paternalism … The fundamental objective of “right-wing socialism" is to maintain the status quo by preventing the free exercise of entrepreneurship and creative human action from disrupting the pre-established framework of social organization. It supports social hierarchy and certain people and groups to hold higher status in such a hierarchy. Military socialism, guild socialism, agrarian socialism, and some forms of Christian socialism are also termed "right-wing socialism" by various authors. Fascism has been described by historian Ze'ev Sternhell as a nationalist socialism associated with anti-bourgeois, anti-democratic, anti-liberal, and anti-Marxist views … the rise of a "National Socialism" formed the basis of Nazism (who) subscribed to theories of racial hierarchy and social Darwinism, excluding those deemed either to be community aliens or of a foreign race. It rejected the Marxist concept of class struggle, opposed ideas of class equality and international solidarity, and sought to defend private property and businesses.