Joan Swirsky’s insightful article could just as well apply to Australia’s Labor Party. It seems your world has fallen under a marxist spell of delusion. I remember Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s “Iron Lady”, saying “Communism seems a good idea, until you run out of spending other people’s money.” But then humans have very short memories. Thank you Joan for re-educating my readers.

Gibber! Gibber!

Chugley

Safety First, Comrade

The communists who want to run our country and our lives have no regard for our well-being. Just look at a little history, plus the present day.

Joan Swirsky | August 29, 2026

Max Pixel

When I was studying to become a nurse in the late 1960s, I learned that the most important value in patient care, for both nurses and doctors, is safety.  Not curing, which is hoped for but often impossible, and not even empathy, although a high priority.  That is because the patient who falls out of bed or is given the wrong dose of medicine or whose grievance is ignored or — yikes! this just happened in Nashville — may pay with nothing less than his life.

As a mother of three, I already knew this.  All the love and support and education in the world meant nothing in comparison to keeping my young children safe — away from unprotected electrical outlets, sharp table corners, a hot stove, automobile traffic, people with contagious diseases, and of course bad values.

I never forgot this lesson: safety first, a value that applies as well — first and foremost and above all others — to our country.

Among the most blatant of unsafe conditions is a home without locks on the doors and windows or, today, that lacks some kind of alarm or alert system.  Does even one person you know or have ever known in your entire life live in a home, apartment, condo, or co-op with no locks on its doors or windows?  An honest answer would be a thundering “no!”

That is because we live in a world where there are people who are seriously mentally disturbed and criminals too numerous to mention whose raison d’être is to rob you of your possessions and often rape you or torture you or kill you in the process.

Don’t believe me?  According to OpenCrime.us, over a million violent crimes were committed in America in 2025 alone!

We All Saw This with Our Own Eyes

Everyone in America, in fact everyone in the world, witnessed this in living color under the faux Biden regime, when 11 million unvetted illegal aliens — during the faux COVID pandemic, no less — were welcomed with open arms into our country.  While the powers that be, meaning the so-called medical experts, were keeping us six feet apart and masked and shutting down schools and businesses and even military units, they were opening their arms not only to sex-traffickers, drug-traffickers, communists, jihadists, and career criminals, et al., but also to the de facto implementation of the Cloward-Piven strategy from the 1960s, the leftist goal of which was and is “to facilitate a political crisis by overloading the system with crushing welfare costs, forcing the creation of a system of a guaranteed minimum income,” and “redistributing income through the federal government.”

In other words, to actualize their longtime goal and ongoing fetish for communism by bringing about the collapse — actually the destruction — of the capitalist system by bankrupting it from overwhelming welfare expenditures.  And that is what we witnessed as massive numbers of illegal aliens were put up in posh digs like the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City (and other fancy venues), and promptly provided with cash stipends, cell phones, free medical care and food, and top-flight education for their children.

It is also relevant to mention that our porous borders accounted for a reported case of bubonic plague in Oregon (attributed to a cat…yeah, right!), the resurgence of tuberculosis in New York City, and an epidemic of measles in 14 states.

All because of the Biden regime’s abject neglect of — indeed, contempt for — the most important thing our elected officials are charged with protecting: our safety!  Not our happiness, not our well-being, not our employment status, not our relationships, not our mental or physical health, not our entertainment, but our safety!

Not Everyone Agrees

There are quite a few people who have a soft spot for illegal aliens and a collective blind spot for the huge spike in crime, including murders and child abduction, that has been reported across the country.  In fact, as reported by Julio Rosas, at the recent Democratic National Committee’s meeting, Democrats uniformly pledged their allegiance to open borders, and of course the complete abolition of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and all the mean people who work for ICE.

Additionally, writes Rosas, “the resolution calls for restricting the Department of Homeland Security’s funding until workplace raids, mass roundups, arrests at courthouses and check-ins, enforcement actions near schools and houses of worship are no longer carried out.”

Did you ever notice that when Democrats — i.e., liberals, leftists, progressives — speak about the tsunami of foreigners who have flooded into our country, they always — 100 percent of the time — omit the word “illegal”?

Makes sense when you think about it.  These are the people who embraced and applauded and supported and sent millions of dollars to Black Lives Matter and Antifa when those seditious, anarchic groups were rampaging across the nation, committing widespread arson, hurling (planted) bricks through businesses, sending dozens of people to intensive care units, and causing a significant number of deaths in their leftwing anti-capitalism and anti-American path.

Make no mistake about it: Destroying ICE and its agents is among the major issues Democrats will run on in the midterms and will implement immediately if they gain the majority.

They Have Allies

In keeping with the oh, so compassionate bleeding hearts in the Democrat party, we have state assemblywoman Emily Gallagher (D-N.Y.), a card-carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) who has gone public with her belief — not a theory, but a belief — that it is perfectly fine for a person to shoplift — i.e., steal — if he has a “biological need” — like for toothpaste and soap.  She even suggested that shoplifting should be legalized!

And surprise, surprise!  In keeping with her party’s passionate embrace of Jew- and Israel-hatred, in 2024, Gallagher “attended an anti-Israel phone bank sponsored by the New Jersey chapter of American Muslims for Palestine, whose leaders have espoused vile antisemitic rhetoric and are under investigation by Virginia’s attorney general for potentially funding terrorists.”

With allies like this, who needs enemies?

What Does Safety Look Like?

That is why in President Trump’s first acts when taking office in his second term, he immediately moved to close our wide-open southern border and to deport the multi-millions of illegal aliens whom the liberals/leftists/progressives among us welcomed in with open arms.

“We’re a nation of immigrants,” they opine.  “Immigrants built our country,” they say to scold critics.  “Deporting our immigrants is not who we are!” they bleat endlessly.

Again, the word they always omit when pleading their bleeding-heart case is “illegal”!

But President Trump, ever the empiricist, knew the exorbitant costs in dollars and in crime that this tsunami of illegal aliens brought.

According to writer Jasmine Baehr, the Trump border crackdown against drug cartels and arrests of convicted fentanyl-traffickers has led to a drop in synthetic opioid deaths from 48,913 to 38,084, while, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), total drug overdose deaths fell 14 percent, and fentanyl deaths plunged 22 percent.  Total drug overdose deaths also fell 14 percent during the same period, from 81,313 to 69,973.

In addition, the president signed legislation that strengthens criminal penalties for fentanyl — which he calls “a weapon of mass destruction” — and his administration has arrested more than 10,000 suspected gang members and foreign nationals who the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said had prior fentanyl-related convictions.

Ask the thousands upon thousands of parents who have lost their children to this vicious drug how grateful they are for the president’s enhanced border security and for saving other parents the lifetime grief they themselves are experiencing.

This is not to omit, as journalist and TV correspondent Sharyl Attkisson documents, that President Trump has delivered the largest drop in violent crime in American history!  This includes:

• Violent crime plunged 9.3 percent in 2025 — the largest annual decline on record.
• Murder dropped 18.1 percent — tying the lowest rate in recorded history.
• Robbery fell 18.5 percent — resulting in nearly 38,500 fewer robberies.
• Rape declined 7.6 percent — resulting in more than 10,000 fewer victims.
• Aggravated assault fell 7.2 percent — resulting in over 62,700 fewer attacks.
• Property crime dropped 12.4 percent — the second-largest decline in history, with nearly 750,000 fewer offenses.

These numbers Attkisson cites — in line with the Council on Criminal Justice, Major Cities Chiefs Association, and many other sources — mark the decisive reversal of the crime crisis Democrats left behind.

Not Everyone Agrees

In stark contrast, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) think it’s much smarter and much better to fuggedabout safety and implement their notion of an ideal America, which includes (this is the short list)

• replacing the president and the Supreme Court with people chosen by Congress;
• abolishing the US Senate;
• implementing amnesty for all illegal aliens;
• defunding the Department of War (and, of course, the police);
• terminating ICE;
• extending full voting rights to people with criminal convictions and noncitizens;
• Medicare for all;
• free public college; and
• expanded government ownership of key industries.

Needless to say, Vladmir Putin would approve!

What’s the Catch?

We’ve all seen this scenario before, for decades.  The radical leftists among us are very good at pretending — and convincing naïve voters — that they will implement socialism/communism significantly more successfully than all the crashingly failed regimes that have collapsed so catastrophically throughout history, as well as those pitiful communist regimes that exist today.

These radicals, who see the world composed exclusively of victims and victimizers, may promise to change things for the better, but one thing they will never change is the privilege and private security and financial stability they will claim for themselves.

When it comes to the all-important issue of safety, you can be sure that they will never put their constituents or our country first!

Joan Swirsky is a New York based journalist and author. Her website is www.joanswirsky.com, and she can be reached at joanswirsky@gmail.com.

JOAN SWIRSKY, the recipient of numerous Long Island Press Awards, wrote health, science and feature articles for The New York Times Long Island section for over 20 years, as well as for many regional and national publications. A former obstetrical nurse, Lamaze teacher, and psychotherapist, Joan is the book-and-lyric writer of four musicals, one of which, “Oh Baby!” – about three couples facing parenthood – was produced in New York City in 1983.For eight years, starting in 1985, Joan was a science writer for The Women’s Record on Long Island, during which time she wrote over 175 articles on the issue of breast cancer on Long Island – its clinical, psychological, political, environmental, and social implications. She has been publicly acknowledged as being responsible for two redesigns of the New York State Study on breast cancer and as being the first journalist in America to put the breast cancer-environment relationship “on the map” of public consciousness.Joan is a clinical nurse specialist (R.N., M.S., C.S., C.E.) and NY-State-certified psychotherapist. She was awarded a Nurse of Distinction Award by the New York State Legislature in 1991, received the Master’s Faculty Leadership Award from Adelphi University, and is a member of Sigma Theta Tau Nursing Honor Society.She was also the co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of REVOLUTION -The Journal of Nurse Empowerment from 1990 to 1995. The national quarterly magazine received First Prize for Editorial Excellence from the prestigious national media Folio Awards in 1994 in NY City. In addition, for 15 years, she was the founding editor of The Caucus Current, a monthly magazine on conservative Jewish political issues, which was mailed monthly to the entire U.S. Congress and Israeli Knesset. After the October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, Joan sent out a nightly 20-page compendium of graphics and articles for the entire duration of the war to her formidable, international email list.For 15 years, Joan wrote a monthly column on pregnancy and childbirth for Newsday’s Parents & Children Magazine and for Long Island Parent. She was also a political writer for Newsmax.com and Newsmax Magazine. To this day, she writes for numerous conservative websites. Joan is also the author/coauthor of 12 books.Joan and her late husband Steve, a businessman, have three children and three grandchildren.