John Hickenlooper: “If we want to beat Donald Trump and achieve big progressive goals, socialism is not the answer,”

There was much celebration on the left when a recent poll suggested that 40% of Americans support “some form of socialism.”

Ultimately, though, socialism itself is not becoming more popular with Americans. It turns out that few know what it is—some think of it as “equality,” others as free everything, others as capitalism lite, still others as ending poverty (!?), and so on.

Once it is explained to them or if they already know what socialism is, American voters balk and (correctly) state that it’s not compatible with American values.

A vocal number of leftists among Democrats, however, refuse to believe that America, as President Trump recently stated, “will never be a socialist country,” and they are pushing hard to the far left and dragging the Democratic Party along with them.

They’ve become so brazen that they literally booed former Colorado governor and current 2020 Democrat presidential hopeful John Hickenlooper for saying that “socialism is not the answer.”

The Washington Free Beacon reports:

Former Colorado governor and Democratic presidential candidate John Hickenlooper was booed while speaking at the California Democratic Party Convention on Saturday after he denounced socialism. “If we want to beat Donald Trump and achieve big progressive goals, socialism is not the answer,” Hickenlooper told the audience, prompting boos. “I was reelected in a purple state in 2014, one of the worst years for democrats in a quarter-century,” he continued to loud expressions of disapproval.

Democrat John Hickenlooper: “Socialism is not the answer” “We shouldn’t try to achieve universal coverage by removing private insurance from 150 million Americans” “We shouldn't try to tackle climate change by guaranteeing every American a gov job” Crowd boos loudly each time pic.twitter.com/Q3Oosgd8Wf — Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) June 1, 2019

If you can’t watch the clip in the above tweet, watch here:

Following his speech at the convention, Hickenlooper, who has previously defended our economic system as “the only one that can sustain a strong middle class,” told the Hill that Democrats are making a mistake by embracing socialism.

“If we don’t draw a clear distinction between Democrats and our candidates and socialism, the Republicans will paint us into a corner that we can’t get out of,” Hickenlooper told The Hill in an interview shortly after his speech. “Massive government expansions may not be strictly speaking socialism, but trust me: Republicans will make it seem like socialism. In places like Ohio and Michigan and North Carolina and Wisconsin, places we have to win to beat Trump, we’ll be starting out ten yards behind.” “We need to be laser-focused on winning this election, and that’s going to mean focusing on kitchen table programs that will actually improve people’s quality of life,” he said.

The upside to the Democrats’ enthusiastic embrace of socialism and willingness to treat its own party members in this way is that it’s a real turn-off to normal Americans. Should the Democrats continue down this path and a socialist win the Democrat 2020 primary, Trump wins a second term.

Hickenlooper gets it, but no one on his side appears to be listening.



