2026 election: Marxism/socialism or fascism/nationalism – No difference
Ronald Reagan once said, “What does it mean whether you hold the deed or the title to your business or property if the government holds the power of life and death over that business or property.” While this excerpt from his A Time for Choosing speech was directed at the Marxism and socialism of Democrats, I think Reagan’s words can now be applied to the fascism and nationalism we’re witnessing from Republicans and Donald Trump.
Republicans once stood as the defenders of free market capitalism and constitutional liberty, or at least they pretended to do so every election cycle. But ever since Donald Trump rebranded the Republican Party as America First nationalism, corporatism and fascism has become preferred policy over liberty and economic freedom.
As I explain in my book, The New Axis of Evil: Exposing the Bipartisan War on Liberty, that the assault on freedom comes to us at the hands of Republicans AND Democrats. For example, in 2021, then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi tapped into her inner Karl Marx when she said that it was time to improve destroy capitalism because “it has not served our economy well.”
“In America, capitalism is our system, it is our economic system, but it has not served our economy as well as it should,” Pelosi said during an appearance at the virtually held Moderated Conversation at Chatham House. “And so, what we want to do is not depart from that, but to improve it and to make sure that it serves us.”
Words like “improve” and “reform” are Orwellian doublespeak used to hide the true intentions of Washington politicians and to deliberately disguise or reverse the meaning of words. In this case, when Pelosi speaks of the need to “improve” capitalism, she really means that she wants to destroy it and replace it with something straight out of the Karl Marx playbook.
“You cannot have a system where the success of some springs from the exploitation of the workers and springs from the exploitation of the environment and the rest, and we have to correct that.” ~ Nancy Pelosi
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“Unlimited exploitation of cheap labour-power is the sole foundation of [the capitalists’] power to compete.” ~ Karl Marx, Das Kapital (1867)
“Capitalist production, therefore, only develops the techniques and the degree of combination of the social process of production by simultaneously undermining the original sources of all wealth – the soil and the worker.” ~ Karl Marx, Volume 1 of Capital (Emphasis mine)
Pelosi took steps in the direction of socialism and Marxism when she appointed several far-left Democrats to the Select Committee on Economic Disparity and Fairness in Growth (it is no longer standing), including Democratic Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and “squad” member Pramila Jayapal. The panel was tasked with recommending potential actions to address “wealth inequality” — another use of Orwellian doublespeak.
In October 2023, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (AOC) said that capitalism was no longer a “redeemable” system in America and that it needed to be replaced with Marxism/socialism to provide “a more just economy.”
“So, to me, capitalism at its core, what we’re talking about when we talk about that, is the absolute pursuit of profit at all human, environmental, and social cost. That is what we’re really discussing.
“[Capitalists] can control our labor. They can control massive markets that they dictate and can capture governments. And they can essentially have power over the many. And to me that is not a redeemable system for us to be able to participate in for the prosperity and peace for the vast majority of people.” (Emphasis mine)
Though she avoided using the words Marxism and socialism, AOC proceeded to make a few suggestions on how it would be a better system than free market capitalism:
“I think at the end of the day, it is about who has control over the very core assets of production and society.
“Where we can transition to and there are certain ideas where we’re talking about — for example, Elizabeth Warren has discussed workers being elected to the governing boards of companies. And also, we’re here in the Bronx. I represent a community that has the largest concentration of worker cooperatives in, you know, one of the largest concentrations in the world.
“These are alternative ways of doing business. Free markets are not the same thing as capitalism. And you can have markets where businesses and ways of producing, trading, selling goods are really controlled and not just controlled but giving more power to workers. People get a fair shake. Union jobs, unionized workplaces, all of these are different steps and levels that we’re talking about in a more just economy.” (emphasis mine)
For the uninitiated and the public school-educated Millennials and Gen Zs who have become enamored with the idea, socialism comes in many forms, but the goal is always the same — government control of property and natural resources as the means to redistribute wealth, create a utopian social order, eliminate economic classes, and provide so-called economic equality for the collective. The two primary forms are state socialism and democratic socialism.
State socialism is a system where the government fully controls the economy and takes ownership of all industry and natural resources. Democratic socialism is a system where a form of free market is placed under the partial control of the government. Private businesses are required to do as the government dictates in matters of worker compensation, benefits, CEO pay, etc.
Though they pretend to believe otherwise, Donald Trump and the Republican Party have adopted the idea of partial government control of the free market under the guise of fascism (or corporatism) and nationalism. During his 2016 campaign, Trump openly promoted some of the Marxist beliefs held by democratic socialists when, in an interview with Bloomberg Politics, he spoke of the need to transform the Republican Party into a “workers party” in order to correct wage inequality and fix an economic system he considered unjust.
Ever since returning to office, Trump’s fascism and nationalism have put America on the fast track to the destruction of liberty. It’s the same as Marxism and socialism, but it has an “R” at the end (IBTimes.com in July 2026):
According to the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trump administration has, since January (2025), finalized at least 30 deals worth about $27 billion. The Department of Commerce has been the most active, completing 17 deals alone, including acquiring a 10 percent stake in Intel.
“Washington’s latest and boldest experiment in industrial policy is a renewed willingness to take equity stakes,” the council stated. It noted that the government used to focus primarily on grants, loans, and tax incentives in dealing with private companies, but has now shifted into “direct ownership.” (Emphasis mine)
Karl Marx, often referred to as the father of socialism and communism, wrote in the Communist Manifesto that there would come a day when workers would rise up to overthrow capitalism and seize the means of production. He called on “proletarians” (workers) to join together to accomplish this goal, which is where the political phrase “Workers of the world, unite!” originated. Marx looked at socialism as a lower form of communism but believed that it would serve as the bridge to communism after capitalism was destroyed.
Throughout his second term, Trump has pursued policies just as corporatist and just as fascist as anything found in the Benito Mussolini nationalist handbook: the government ownership of private business.
In the aftermath of the 2026 election, it’s tempting to hope that we’ll see a return to the Constitution and the rule of law, but the sad fact is that liberty is still in big trouble, especially during the Lame Duck session between now and when the new Congress is sworn in. And no matter what happens after all the votes are counted, the two-party system created by the two parties for the benefit of the two parties will still be running the show.
Like I said, there’s no difference between the Marxism and socialism preached by the left and the fascism and nationalism being forced on us by the right. Either way… we’re screwed!
David Leach is the owner of the Strident Conservative and the author of The New Axis of Evil: Exposing the Bipartisan War on Liberty. He holds people of every political stripe accountable for their failure to uphold conservative values, and he promotes those values instead of political parties.
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