As America prepares to celebrate 250 years of independence, we are witnessing the rise of a political movement that rejects the very ideals that made this nation exceptional.

That political movement, of course, is socialism — and it notched several more wins in New York’s recent primary elections.

Unlike some of the grand socialist revolutions we have seen throughout world history, America’s socialists are not coming with the hammer and sickle — at least not yet. They are trying a gentler approach: running on hollow slogans, free stuff, and unilateral action.

But beneath the rhetoric lies an ideology fundamentally incompatible with America, and one that ultimately threatens the principles that have sustained our republic. 

Our Founders created a government with limited, enumerated powers because they understood that concentrated power eventually becomes abusive. They believed free people and free markets generate the most prosperity for the most people. They believed civic society and local governments are often better equipped to solve problems — and solve them well — than a distant authority ever could.

Yet today’s socialist movement asks Americans to believe something entirely different.

It argues that government should provide more, own more, regulate more, subsidize more, forgive more, and ultimately control more. In their “utopia,” citizens become increasingly dependent on the state, the taxpayer becomes secondary to the bureaucracy, and freedom becomes an inconvenience.

What makes this movement especially troubling is that it does not stop at economic policy. It increasingly travels with hostility toward law enforcement, contempt for public safety, and a willingness to embrace antisemitism. 

That is not America.

One thing the socialists do get right — and eagerly point out — is that America is imperfect.  

But the genius of the American system is that it gives free people the tools to correct injustice without surrendering their liberty. Our Constitution allows citizens to speak, organize, worship, protest, vote, build, challenge authority, and demand better from their government.

That is what made the abolition of slavery possible. That is what made civil rights possible. That is what has welcomed generations of immigrants — including my own family — to pursue lives that would have been unimaginable elsewhere.

This beautiful system of government, envisioned 250 years ago, has lifted more people from poverty, created more opportunity, generated more innovation, and expanded more liberty than any system in human history.

That is where the socialists get it wrong. The answer to America’s imperfections has never been abandoning its principles, concentrating more power in government, or trading liberty for dependency. It has been living up to those principles more fully. 

As we celebrate our Semiquincentennial, we should remember that our success has never depended on government attempting to become all things to all people.

It has depended on something far more powerful: Free people. Free to work. Free to worship. Free to build, fail, disagree, and govern themselves.

That is the great American experiment. And it is worth defending.

Rep. Marc Molinaro represented New York’s 19th District in Congress. He is now running for State Assembly in New York’s 102nd District.