EDITOR:

Dana VanEffen’s letter tries hard to separate socialism from Nazism, but her argument falls apart under even basic scrutiny.

Yes, the term “Nazi” comes from National Socialist German Workers’ Party. And no, that wasn’t just empty branding. Hitler himself said, “I am a socialist.” The Nazis weren’t capitalists, they believed in strong government control over the economy, wealth redistribution (to their chosen groups), and crushing private enterprise that didn’t serve the state. That’s not capitalism. That’s socialism. mixed with nationalism and racial hatred.

VanEffen says the Nazis weren’t “real socialists” because they banned trade unions and fought Marxists. But socialists fighting each other isn’t new. Stalin wiped out Trotskyists. The Nazis eliminated rival leftist groups to centralize their own version of state control. They still enforced price controls, took over industries, launched massive public works, and redistributed wealth. These are classic socialist policies, just targeted at “racially pure” Germans.

She also tries to defend Bernie Sanders by calling him a “democratic socialist,” like he’s advocating for Sweden. But here’s the problem: Sweden and its neighbors are not socialist. They’re capitalist countries with free markets and strong property rights. They run social programs, but they rely on capitalist growth to fund them. Even their leaders have said, bluntly, “We are not socialist.”

Sanders, on the other hand, advocates for government takeovers of industries, massive wealth redistribution, and centralized economic control. This is much closer to socialism than anything happening in Scandinavia.

Dana also accuses Michael Glass of “word games,” but that’s exactly what she’s doing. She wants to sanitize socialism by putting “democratic” in front of it, hoping people forget that socialism, in any form, hands dangerous levels of power to the government. And history has shown, again and again, how easily that power gets abused.

As for her claim that Glass “deliberately” uses “socialist” to scare people, well, maybe people should be concerned. Whether it’s the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Venezuela, or Mao’s China, socialism even when voted in has a nasty habit of ending in authoritarianism, economic collapse, or both.

In the end, VanEffen’s letter proves Glass’s point: words do matter.

And the left has spent decades trying to rewrite history to make socialism look soft and harmless. It’s not. It never has been. And calling it “democratic” doesn’t change that.

Gregory A. Tolman Sr.

Escanaba