Here’s why America’s going the way of Venezuela

By Brent Smith

A growing number of Americans, it seems, are surprised at how fast we are descending from a free and liberty-loving society to one that gives every appearance of emulating any one of many failed socialist/communist states.

But still most cling to the idea that this can never happen here – right? Of course not – although, for example, not too long ago Venezuela was one of the most prosperous nations on Earth. But hey – as the saying goes – they just haven’t done socialism/communism right. Seems no one has.

For years we conservatives complained about Obama – that he was a lawless president, he was despotic, that we’ve never seen anyone like him. How did he ever get elected?

But then came 2020 and a plethora of Democratic candidates. And we asked how any of this crop of leftist radicals could ever become president. Yet here we are.

How did we end up here? How could this happen in America?

Well, if one is a student of history, one would know that it began with a 232-year-old prediction.

It was Monday, Sept. 17, 1787, the last day of the Constitutional Convention, and Ben Franklin had prepared his final remarks. Too weak to actually give the speech himself, he had fellow Pennsylvanian James Wilson deliver it for him.

Within those remarks was this: “I think a general government necessary for us, and there is no form of government but that may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other.”

As is always the case, virtually everything that has gone awry in this country was foretold by the founders. They weren’t soothsayers – they couldn’t see the future. What they were, as I’ve said countless times before, were great students of history, which always repeats itself. And more, they were also astute observers of human nature, which has not and will never change.

But to simply blame Biden, Harris, Obama, the mainstream media or the rest of the leftist radicals, is a cop-out. These presidential candidates are just the latest in a long line of anti-constitutionalists, from approaching two centuries ago.

Take, for example, a man, any man. He starts a company from scratch, builds it up from nothing into something great. He is rightly proud of his accomplishment, of all the hard work and his vision for its success.

He has a son who comes to work for him, and his dream is to pass the company on to the son. The son progresses through the ranks and becomes the president of his father’s company. He has his own ideas, but faithfully and honorably follows his dad’s vision.

The story ends, as does the company, with the passing of the father. Now that dad is out of the picture, the son is free to institute his superior vision for the company by steering it in another direction – and to its eventual and predictable demise.

It happens all the time. And that’s what happening to our great Republic.

Our country flipped from one of Divine Providence, under the watchful eyes of the founders, to one of Manifest Destiny around the time of Andrew Jackson, which roughly coincides with the passing of the last Founding Father.

With “Dad,” the Founding Fathers, out of the way, our nation’s leaders were then “free” to pursue a different vision, the one Franklin foretold.

So why has it taken so long? After all, “Dad” died centuries ago.

Well, each generation has been born into a nation that is just a little less anchored to our founding principles.

Neither Woodrow Wilson nor Franklin Roosevelt was completely successful because there were still enough citizens that grew up without all the safety nets, onerous laws and regulations. The citizenry of that era could still recall a time of American “rugged individualism.”

Over the years, from generation to generation, this “rugged individualism” has been “bred” out of many Americans. We know nothing of a time without giveaways – welfare, food stamps, Social Security, unemployment insurance, and massive government rules and regulations.

That’s how we ended up with Obama and now Biden-Harris. These leftist Democrats are merely the culmination of almost two centuries of the “son” thinking he has a better idea than the father.

To them, it’s not radical ideology or despotism. It’s merely the “son’s” vs. the “father’s” vision. But lopsidedly more often than not, it turns out the son was wrong – that there was no better wheel than the father envisioned and built, and no better form of governance than the Declaration, the Constitution and the founders’ vision.

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Brent Smith

Brent Smith, aka The Common Constitutionalist, is a constitutional conservative who advocates for first principles – the founders' original intent and enemy of progressives. He is former Navy and a martial arts expert. Smith considers himself just an average Joe with no formal journalism background – but rather than simply complain about the state of our nation, he took to the Internet to battle the left. Check out Brent Smith's blog. Read more of Brent Smith's articles here.


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