Perhaps the most significant factor contributing to the Soviet Union’s collapse was a resolute commitment to the infallibility of socialist ideology, coupled with its continued application long after its obvious failure. The failure to learn history and, by extension, internalize the lessons from this dark period is what enables our modern-day Marxists (whom we refer to as “leftists” or “progressives”) to believe that they can somehow avoid the consequences of the policies they promote.

Modern political history shows that these same people almost always avoid any personal liability for the destruction that they’ve wrought. In the Soviet countries, this mindset prevailed until the collapse of that abominable regime in 1991, but not before oppressing, enslaving, and murdering millions.

Unfortunately, this worldview persists even today. Adherence to ideological purity is valued above empirical evidence and objective truth, and is particularly prevalent among miseducated Western leftists who “identify as secular,” whereas those of us who believe in G-d are labeled “superstitious.” These are the archetypical “godless commies.” By traditional standards, they display appalling behavior. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, who had experience with this, once said, “If there is no G-d, everything is permitted.”

Image: The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 (unaltered usage allowed under German law), which taught Marxists nothing.

These ideologues consider their worldview incontrovertible, making them intolerant of opposing viewpoints, which they consider “lies.” As we witnessed after the June 27 debate, opposing viewpoints are also regarded as inherently sinister. The debate moderators, CNN’s Jake Tapper (“Fake Yapper”) and Dana Bash (the ex-wife of former Obama CIA Chief of Staff and DoD Chief of Staff Jeremy Bash), are two such godless commies, with their own histories of intolerance while feigning virtue.

Such cadres concentrate (and flourish) in institutions such as academia, government, non-profit/activist organizations, think tanks (producing few original ideas), and political and other organizations where ideological purity has replaced merit as the basis for career advancement. Here, ideas need not be empirically proven to receive perpetual funding. This explains how Democrats often “fail upward,” also known as “The Peter Principle” (people rise to the level of their incompetence). Biden, Harris, Blinken, and Jake Sullivan are prime examples.

Thomas Sowell said that “the most fundamental fact about the ideas of the political left is that they do not work.” Yet we still find ourselves struggling with ideologues promoting impracticable ideas/policies provably tested over decades as destructive and morally evil. Unlimited empirical evidence and a well-documented 74-year Soviet period resulting in misery, deprivation, and failure don’t dissuade them. Millions remain yoked to this ideology. It’s simultaneously perplexing while perversely impressive, speaking to the religious nature of the ideology and the effectiveness of the indoctrination.

They hubristically believe that men and the governments they create can somehow bypass, bend, or suspend the laws of nature, avoiding failure. Men can become women and control the weather. It’s as if they believe in a magical black hole that can be perfectly timed and exploited by Marxist demigods so capable that they can identify the precise moments in a time continuum enabling them to successfully implement policies that have failed repeatedly and miserably whenever they’ve previously been attempted.

If that isn’t bizarre enough, there is the self-delusion that their intentions are uniquely virtuous and their self-anointed “experts” (whose status never requires validation) uniquely capable.

When these policies, judged on merit (outcome, not intention), inevitably fail, the ideologues will hypocritically claim success or shamelessly place blame on others for not letting them “go far enough” or “implement it correctly.”

Ultimately, when they realize that the immutable natural laws they have attempted to bypass apply even to them, and they become trapped by the consequences of their actions, they invariably demand more government intervention and additional resources (their favorite), or, they just leave the mess they created for others to sort out. All the while, they insist that their intentions were good and their “hearts were in the right place.”

This occurs when actions have no consequences. Thomas Sowell again: “It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”

As we’ve seen, elections have consequences, but so should actions, particularly for those entrusted with power. Those promoting a collectivist, immoral, anti-human, anti-religion ideology, ignoring the laws of nature, giving money to terrorists and drug cartels, encouraging rioting, bailing criminals out rather than prosecuting them, and calling parents protesting sexual deviance “domestic terrorists” are trying to overthrow the system. Where I come from, we call that TREASON, which has serious consequences.

Progressive’s adamantine commitment to their ideology’s infallibility is what enables them to believe that they can avoid their policies’ consequences. It is a Soviet mindset, replacing religion, that prevailed in the Eastern bloc until it began to collapse in 1989, and that’s been perpetuated in underdeveloped places in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. In the Muslim world, it fused with Islam in Algeria, Egypt, and Iraq. This is an integral part of what makes (and keeps) such places underdeveloped.

Break free, as Czechia, Hungary, Chile, the UAE, and Taiwan did, and you might find your country developing. Become consumed by it, and your country will likely be destroyed (e.g., Argentina, Greece, Portugal, South Africa, and Rhodesia/Zimbabwe).

Although leftism has not claimed even one success (even many Israeli kibbutzim have failed, proving that such social experiments flop even on a small scale), this creepy ideology retains its staying power. Empirical evidence is irrelevant.

Ultimately, leftism is a faith, allowing its proponents to believe there must be loopholes in the laws of human nature and causality that apply to a progressive society, allowing its members to “have their cake and eat it, too.” Their well-documented history of misery, deprivation, and abject failure is no bar to their promoting an anti-human, anti-freedom ideology in the belief that somehow, once implemented, they will magically be spared its consequences.

The most vexing aspect of this manifestly self-destructive behavior is the false perception that progressive intentions are somehow more virtuous. When their policies—which must inevitably be judged on their merits (outcomes, not intentions)—consistently fail, progressives will either hypocritically claim success or shamelessly place blame on rivals for “not letting you go far enough.”

Ultimately—and this is something progressives willfully refuse to acknowledge—when the immutable natural laws you refuse to consider still make themselves known, you become trapped by the consequences of your actions. People who are not cultists will look at their failures and learn from them. The left’s cultists never learn, though. They just double down on their failures, even as the American experience collapses in ruins around them.

Jonathan Gault is a pseudonym.