By Bob Linn

America is trending communist. Less that 100 years ago, communism and socialism were anathema to most Americans. Last August, Gallop polling found that only 54% of the American people viewed capitalism in a positive light. Americans who wish for a socialist society and government now stands at 38%.

Polling Democrats only has discovered that sixty percent of those who are Democrats favor socialism with only the minority having a positive view of capitalism!

With the GOP primary elections for Governor coming this summer, it is time to look for a candidate who will take a bold stand for American values and commit to do his part in reversing this trend.

The Education Buck Stops with the Governor

In the realm of our state universities, U.S. President Harry Truman’s phrase, “The Buck Stops Here,” applies not to the university president, but to the university’s board of regents.

When Truman coined the phrase, he was addressing the already popular phrase, “passing the buck,” a reference to the habit of blaming someone up or down the chain of command. Truman was acknowledging total responsibility for the welfare of the nation and the policies which would determine America’s capacity to flourish.

In all but eight of the fifty states, university regents are appointed by the Governor. Oklahoma’s Governor appoints regents to each of our universities. The regent board hires and fires the university president, oversees university policies and crafts the overarching mission of the university.

As a general observation of the American political landscape, the nation lacks the Patrick Henrys and the cadre of Presbyterian preachers whom the King of England credited with the war for independence when he spoke of the war as a “Presbyterian Rebellion.”

When our founders signed the Declaration of Independence 250 years ago, it was an indication of the profound commitment of each of them to the welfare of coming generations, as they closed the Declaration stating: “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

Those are the kind of men we need to turn this massive ship we know as the American state to its original course as the flagship of Christian Liberty and Divine Grace to the nations of the world.

It can begin small. It can begin with one governor willing to part ways with those interested only in statecraft for the sake of statecraft and join the legions of men of history’s past in continuing the massive mission of Western Civilization. To walk in the footsteps of John Hancock, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams.

Those were fifty-six men willing to forfeit their fortunes, their reputations, and their lives to establish a political structure grounded in the highest ideals of the West. Willing to form a government dependent on the Christian history upon which they stood.

America needs governors who will join hands with these men of the past and walk with those like-minded in the present to reclaim the institutions upon which this nation was built. Fifty governors who will reclaim the university.

Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis is coming close. I wonder if, on June 16, Oklahoma will produce the nation’s first Governor who is dedicated to make Oklahoma a model for the restoration of civic culture.