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Western societies must stop the spread of Marxism

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7 minute read

From the Fraser Institute

By Ross McKitrick

The point is not to improve, it’s to destroy. Think of any tradition or institution that has thus far escaped attention from woke radicals and make a note. Within a year you will learn it too is under siege.

Recently in this paper, Jordan Peterson diagnosed the psychological grip woke activists have on ordinary people, urging conservatives to move beyond the slogan “It’s the economy, stupid” and start fighting the philosophical battles at hand. I would argue the economic and philosophical problems originated in the same place—the seminal text of political economy, which became the handbook for bad economics and the woke movement alike. Put simply, it’s the political economy, stupid.

I speak of The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Published in 1888 it opens with the simplistic declaration: “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed.” In the rigid oppressor/oppressed scheme, which is the heart of woke ideology, everyone is either tyrant or victim, not based on one’s choices but by the accident of historical circumstances. If you are an oppressor, you can never be anything else.

And, most ominously, everything that’s contributed to historical oppression, including all customary civil rights and social institutions, must be destroyed and replaced with a new centrally-planned society. According to Marx and Engels, “the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.” To abolish private ownership is to abolish all individuality, replacing it with uniform group identity under the control of a totalitarian state.

And they didn’t stop there. They called for abolition of all forms of free buying and selling, all rights of inheritance, family structures, religion, private industry, parental control over education, etc. They called for the centralization of banking, industry, agriculture, all means of communication and all forms of transportation into the hands of “the State,” by which they meant themselves and their allies. “In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things,” they declared. “They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.” (emphasis added)

It was through this tortured logic that Marx and Engels convinced their followers to gain power through force, strip people of their rights and impose brutal totalitarianism. After all, what we call “civil rights” and “personal freedoms” were merely the means by which oppressors have historically exercised power. Neither Marx nor Engels nor their allies asked whether their cure might be worse than the disease. Having declared that society is nothing but oppressors exploiting the oppressed, and having declared themselves the true Advocates for the oppressed, they were duty-bound to destroy society and impose what they called “communism,” an empty word that turned out to mean nothing more than them and their fellow lunatics taking charge.

Once you understand that every institution on which society has hitherto rested, down to motherhood and milk, is a target for overthrow, today’s woke revolution makes sense. The point is not to improve, it’s to destroy. Think of any tradition or institution that has thus far escaped attention from woke radicals and make a note. Within a year you will learn it too is under siege.

The 20th century taught us that Marxist theory is false and toxic, but once it takes root it spreads quickly, including in places where people believed “it couldn’t happen here.” From 1945 until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990 at least half the world lived under Marxist dictatorships. Why would such an odious doctrine become popular in so many societies? How can it be stopped once it begins to spread? After the fall of communism, we in the West stopped asking those questions, and forgot how to answer them.

Marxist doctrine spreads because the “oppressed” gain instant status and power without the need for personal virtues or accomplishments. The idea holds appeal, but only to our most selfish and cruel instincts. The oppressed become exempt from criticism, and come to believe they’re entitled to take everything the so-called oppressors have, by force if necessary, or to burn the whole system down for revenge.

The only remedy for this cult-like mindset, what Elon Musk called the “woke mind virus,” is to teach people a healthy and proper loathing of victim status. The young must be taught old-fashioned values of self-reliance and individual accountability. Coddled adults who embrace cultural Marxism and its seductive promise of victim status might eventually tire of its grim nihilism, but until they do they must not be allowed to exploit or misappropriate the compassion decent people feel towards genuine victims of oppression.

Peterson is right that the underlying battles are philosophical and psychological. Many people will only become engaged when cultural Marxism begins to destroy the economy, as eventually it must. Anyone who wants to prevent another outbreak of the political and psychological horrors of the Maoist and Soviet empires must recognize the lateness of the hour and equip themselves accordingly.

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Automotive

Auto giant shuts down foreign plants as Trump moves to protect U.S. industry

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MXM logo  MxM News

Quick Hit:

Stellantis is pausing vehicle production at two North American facilities—one in Canada and another in Mexico—following President Donald Trump’s announcement of 25% tariffs on foreign-made cars. The move marks one of the first corporate responses to the administration’s push to bring back American manufacturing.

Key Details:

  • In an email to workers Thursday, Stellantis North America chief Antonio Filosa directly tied the production pause to the new tariffs, writing that the company is “continuing to assess the medium- and long-term effects” but is “temporarily pausing production” at select assembly plants outside the U.S.

  • Production at the Windsor Assembly Plant in Ontario will be paused for two weeks, while the Toluca Assembly Plant in Mexico will be offline for the entire month of April.

  • These plants produce the Chrysler Pacifica minivan, the new Dodge Charger Daytona EV, the Jeep Compass SUV, and the Jeep Wagoneer S EV.

Diving Deeper:

On Wednesday afternoon in the White House Rose Garden, President Trump announced sweeping new tariffs aimed at revitalizing America’s auto manufacturing industry. The 25% tariffs on all imported cars are part of a broader “reciprocal tariffs” strategy, which Trump described as ending decades of globalist trade policies that hollowed out U.S. industry.

Just a day later, Stellantis became the first major automaker to act on the new policy, halting production at two of its international plants. According to an internal email obtained by CNBC, Stellantis North American COO Antonio Filosa said the company is “taking immediate actions” to respond to the tariff policy while continuing to evaluate the broader impact.

“These actions will impact some employees at several of our U.S. powertrain and stamping facilities that support those operations,” Filosa wrote.

The Windsor, Ontario plant, which builds the Chrysler Pacifica and the newly introduced Dodge Charger Daytona EV, will shut down for two weeks. The Toluca facility in Mexico, responsible for the Jeep Compass and Jeep Wagoneer S EV, will suspend operations for the entire month of April.

The move comes as Stellantis continues to face scrutiny for its reliance on low-wage labor in foreign markets. As reported by Breitbart News, the company has spent years shifting production and engineering jobs to countries like Brazil, India, Morocco, and Mexico—often at the expense of American workers. Last year alone, Stellantis cut around 400 U.S.-based engineering positions while ramping up operations overseas.

Meanwhile, General Motors appears to be responding differently. According to Reuters, GM told employees in a webcast Thursday that it will increase production of light-duty trucks at its Fort Wayne, Indiana plant—where it builds the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra. These models are also assembled in Mexico and Canada, but GM’s decision suggests a shift in production to the U.S. could be underway in light of the tariffs.

As Trump’s trade reset takes effect, more automakers are expected to recalibrate their production strategies—potentially signaling a long-awaited shift away from offshoring and toward rebuilding American industry.

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Business

‘Time To Make The Patient Better’: JD Vance Says ‘Big Transition’ Coming To American Economic Policy

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JD Vance on “Rob Schmitt Tonight” discussing tariff results

 

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Hailey Gomez

Vice President JD Vance said Thursday on Newsmax that he believes Americans will “reap the benefits” of the economy as the Trump administration makes a “big transition” on tariffs.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1,679.39 points on Thursday, just a day after President Donald Trump announced reciprocal tariffs against nations charging imports from the U.S. On “Rob Schmitt Tonight,” Schmitt asked Vance about the stock market hit, asking how the White House felt about the “Liberation Day” move.

“We’re feeling good. Look, I frankly thought in some ways it could be worse in the markets, because this is a big transition. You saw what the President said earlier today. It’s like a patient who was very sick,” Vance said. “We did the operation, and now it’s time to make the patient better. That’s exactly what we’re doing. We have to remember that for 40 years, we’ve been doing this for 40 years.”

“American economic policy has rewarded people who ship jobs overseas. It’s taxed our workers. It’s made our supply chains more brittle, and it’s made our country less prosperous, less free and less secure,” Vance added.

Vance recalled that one of his children had been sick and needed antibiotics that were not made in the United States. The Vice President called it a “ridiculous thing” that some medicines invented in the country are no longer manufactured domestically.

“That’s fundamentally what this is about. The national security of manufacturing and making the things that we need, from steel to pharmaceuticals, antibiotics, and so forth, but also the good jobs that come along when you have economic policies that reward investing in America, rather than investing in foreign countries,” Vance said.

WATCH:

With a baseline 10% tariff placed on an estimated 60 countries, higher tariffs were applied to nations like China and Israel. For example, China, which has a 67% tariff on U.S. goods, will now face a 34% tariff from the U.S., while Israel, which has a 33% tariff, will face a 17% U.S. tariff.

“One bad day in the stock market, compared to what President Trump said earlier today, and I think he’s right about this. We’re going to have a booming stock market for a long time because we’re reinvesting in the United States of America. More importantly than that, of course, the people in Wall Street have done well,” Vance said.

“We want them to do well. But we care the most about American workers and about American small businesses, and they’re the ones who are really going to benefit from these policies,” Vance said.

The number of factories in the U.S., Vance said, has declined, adding that “millions of workers” have lost their jobs.

“My town [Middletown, Ohio], where you had 10,000 great American steel workers, and my town was one of the lucky ones, now probably has 1,500 steel workers in that factory because you had economic policies that rewarded shipping our jobs to China instead of investing in American workers,” Vance said. “President Trump ran on changing it. He promised he would change it, and now he has. I think Americans are going to reap the benefits.”

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