Socialist Bernie Sanders’ electoral wins in Nevada, New Hampshire, and perhaps Iowa, have left me thinking, who’d want to be a millionaire, let alone billionaire, in Sanders’ America?

Not even Regis Philbin, the former host of the “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” game show, I dare say.

John Balentine, a former managing editor for the Lakes Region Weekly, lives in Windham.

Sanders has long scapegoated “millionaires and billionaires” as the cause of America’s social ills. He blames them for hoarding wealth and, if elected president, Sanders says he will “transform America” by forcing the rich to “pay their fair share” toward entitlement programs.

Sanders wants to turn America into a socialist system where the poor are miraculously lifted out of poverty by forcing the rich to pay for it. His American dream will be a nightmare. No one would seek to be rich, because there’d be no incentive. The rich would soon be stripped of their capacity to pay and the government would turn to the middle class for its funding needs.

We’ve seen this movie before, starting with the Bolshevik Revolution. Watch the home invasion scene in “Doctor Zhivago” as a wealthy family dines if you want a vivid theatrical reminder of socialism’s ruthlessness.

But many Americans don’t need a movie to remember socialism’s evils. They remember Soviet dictators murdering and imprisoning millions. They remember babushka grandmothers waiting in lines for their daily bread. And they remember when the U.S.S.R., a place Sanders chose to honeymoon in 1988, collapsed and the free world celebrated.

The economy suffers when the state owns the means of production and people are guaranteed an income no matter their work ethic or talents. That’s why socialism always fails. Why work hard inventing or making widgets when the guy next to you isn’t and is receiving the same take-home pay?

If allowed to blossom, Sanders’ ideas will end our experiment in self-governing democracy, as Ben Franklin warned. People vote for Sanders because they want free stuff. What else does he offer? But they should remember Democrat John F. Kennedy’s wise words instead, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”

Sanders wants to take over health care with “Medicare for all.” Government already runs K-12 education with local and state taxes paying for it, but he wants to take over education at the collegiate level. Through the Green New Deal, he wants to kill off the coal and oil industries. What else will Sanders take over or destroy if elected?

The business of America is business, as the old saying goes, and people become wealthy because they are brave enough to take on risk. Significant wealth doesn’t happen by chance.

Moreover, the rich become rich because they have the ability to turn great ideas into great products that better our lives – from Apple iPads to the Zillow real estate app. Demonizing such culture-defining entrepreneurs may win the votes of the jealous and lazy but will turn America into a socialist dystopia where no one is free to do or think or live as they want.

As someone who grew up under freedom-loving Ronald Reagan, I can’t believe voters are seriously considering Sanders. He stands for state control, forced redistribution of wealth and equality of outcome, not equality of opportunity. He’s no friend of freedom.

It’s time to realize that Bernie, infamous for not giving any of his own wealth to charity, is just a hypocritical, wool-pulling, tax-avoiding, money-hoarding member of the millionaire and billionaire class.

In a phrase, he’s the kind of person he wants to eliminate.