In the last century, the Democratic Party was known as the party of liberals – but a staunch opponent of socialists and communists.

No more. Radicals have taken over the party and called for policies that would make Karl Marx smile.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., proudly calls himself a socialist as he campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination. Fellow socialist Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., also seeks the Democratic nomination while pretending she is a capitalist, just as she pretended for years that she was a Native American.

JUSTIN HASKINS: ELIZABETH WARREN IS PRETENDING TO BE SOMETHING SHE’S NOT – LET’S NOT FALL FOR HER MASQUERADE

There are plenty of reasons to believe that President Trump will be reelected in 2020 and that Republicans will hold onto their Senate majority and gain House seats. But anything can happen in politics – so supporters of individual liberty and free markets need to be armed with as much information as possible to refute the far-left campaign rhetoric Democratic candidates are engaging in.

Socialists are clever marketers. They pitch their proposals as necessary to advance justice, equality, prosperity and the very survival of life on Earth in the face of impending environmental disaster. None of these things are true, but they sound good and have a certain appeal.

The following are the three most potentially destructive proposals promoted by many of the leading Democrats – as well as important information you need to know about the dangers of these policies.

The Green New Deal

The Green New Deal is the most dangerous and socialistic policy ever embraced by a major political party in American history.

In addition to completely eliminating the fossil fuel industry – destroying millions of jobs in the process – the Green New Deal would also require that everyone replace their gasoline- and diesel-powered cars, tractors and trucks with electric vehicles; mandate every home and commercial and industrial building in America be “upgraded” by the federal government to comply with extreme new environmental regulations, and could even phase out air travel.

The Green New Deal would also force all Americans to buy more expensive wind and solar energy, and create massive energy shortages and power outages that would cripple our economy and leave many of us quite literally in the dark.

The Green New Deal would also impose a long list of socialist programs that have nothing to do with the alleged purpose of the plan – stopping climate change. These include creating a “free” college program, a federal jobs guarantee, a program providing universal access to “healthy foods,” and a whole new system of publicly-owned banks, among many other provisions.

The American Action Forum estimates these policies could cost more than $90 trillion over their first 10 years – about four times the current national debt.

If you asked our foreign enemies to come up with a plan to destroy the American economy and plunge our country into another Great Depression, they couldn’t come up with anything that would do the job as well as the Green New Deal.

In addition, the Green New Deal would directly or indirectly put the federal government in charge of virtually every aspect of our lives.

But there are a few inconvenient truths that socialists like Warren, Sanders, and the queen of climate alarmism – Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. – don’t want you to know.

First, even if you believe humans are entirely responsible for climate change – and there are many scientists who say we aren’t – nothing we do in the United States will stop global carbon dioxide emissions from rising in the coming decades.

If Americans were to do exactly what Green New Deal supporters have called for – committing economic suicide in the process – increased carbon dioxide emissions in growing countries like China and India will push total emissions well beyond their current levels. This is because less than 5 percent of the world’s population lives in the United States.

In fact, in 2018 and 2019 alone, China increased its coal power capacity by enough to provide electricity to more than 31 million homes. And experts now say China’s current efforts to build new or revive existing coal power plants will soon surpass the entire coal generating capacity of the European Union.

Even more importantly, the provisions of the Green New Deal would cause immense environmental harm. For example, because wind and solar facilities consume significantly more land than nuclear or natural gas plants, running America on these renewables would require destroying, at minimum, tens of millions of acres of land, animals and animal habitats.

And this doesn’t even include the land needed to mine the massive amount of natural resources required for billions of new wind turbines and solar panels.

If you asked our foreign enemies to come up with a plan to destroy the American economy and plunge our country into another Great Depression, they couldn’t come up with anything that would do the job as well as the Green New Deal.

Despite all this environmental damage, the Green New Deal has been backed by many of the leading Democratic Party presidential candidates, including Warren and Sanders. Modified versions have been proposed by every other leading candidate.

A Just Society

Although Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal received more attention this year than just about any other Democratic Party proposal, the long-term impacts of her Just Society plan could be even worse.

The Just Society is a package of radical bills that have been endorsed by many of the leaders of the Democratic Party.

Among other things, it would prevent government agencies from denying access to any federal program on the basis of a prior criminal conviction or immigration status. This means that millions of people now in America illegally would be eligible for countless social welfare programs and government aid – costing untold billions of dollars every year.

Even more troubling, however, is that the Just Society would redefine the meaning of poverty, dramatically increasing the number of people eligible for social welfare programs like Medicaid and food stamps.

“Medicare-for-all”

At the top of many progressives’ and socialists’ wish list for 2020 is the creation of a national single-payer health care program.

Not every Democratic Party presidential candidate supports immediately forcing the roughly 150 million people who are currently enrolled in private health insurance plans out of those plans and into a government-run program. But all of them have at the very least said they support a public option that would over time end up having the same effect.

There’s no denying that the current health insurance system is a mess. But putting government in charge of Americans’ health care would be catastrophic.

Every “Medicare-for-all” plan now being proposed would mandate sharp cuts to the payment rates provided to health care providers. That would drive up wait times – increasing pain and suffering, and resulting in the deaths of some patients who would have otherwise found necessary care.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR OPINION NEWSLETTER

Importantly, Democrats have absolutely no plans for expanding the supply of doctors, hospitals and other health care professionals – all while calling for providing tens of millions of additional Americans with access to specialty health care services.

The cost of a national single-payer health care plan has been hotly debated, but most experts believe it would require at least $32 trillion in additional federal spending over the first decade. It’s likely that the real estimate is closer to $36 trillion.

Of course, Democrats have absolutely no way to pay for “Medicare-for-all” – at least not without huge tax increases on the middle class and far more rationing. And they have no way to pay for their Just Society or Green New Deal proposals, either.

This is an especially important point considering the United States is already running trillion-dollar deficits.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

If socialists and progressives have it their way, the 2020 elections will force America down the road to economic and societal ruin. Our children and grandchildren would be saddled with tens of trillions of dollars of debt they won’t be able to pay back. And our highly dysfunctional federal government would be granted the authority to control our lives, from the womb to the tomb.

The stakes couldn’t be higher.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE BY JUSTIN HASKINS