Meet the populist left. By Greg Sheridan in The Australian.
Surely the most under-reported story in Western politics today is the rise of the Democratic Socialists of America [DSA] and their incredible success in Democratic primaries, getting extremist candidates up at the expense of mainstream Democrats. …
The DSA itself is not purely communist but it is extremely left. However, structurally it’s a coalition and several members of its ruling soviet, I mean committee, are self-declared communists, members in good standing of communist organisations.
The communist label is not a Trump slander, it’s self-description. Hasan Piker, an influencer and social media star central figure in the far left’s surge among Democrats, recently declared that communist dictator Mao Zedong, who was responsible for the death by state famine and slaughter of tens of millions of innocent Chinese, “one of the great leaders of this world”.
It’s a tragedy of the political illiteracy of our age that communism’s staggering crimes against humanity are now little known. They hardly figure in school or university education. …
The DSA is associated with left-wing senator Bernie Sanders and also radical New York mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Candidates the DSA has backed have won primary after primary in the Democratic Party.
Manifesto:
The DSA is conscious that while it’s having great success, especially via social media, it’s also generating opposition. So it recently published a manifesto to show how warm and cuddly it is. But this is the most radical document to have mainstream political influence in America in decades.
It calls for an end to capitalism. It wants the abolition of the presidency and the Supreme Court, with a new executive to be chosen by an elected congress. It wants a 32-hour work week with full pay and benefits, universal free housing, nationalisation and permanent state control of all the biggest corporations, an end to all student debt as part of an end to all debt, and an end to US sanctions on Iran, Cuba and Venezuela.
It wants ultimately to abolish the police and defund the military. And of course it has the usual stuff about climate change, demonising Israel and demonising America itself. …
Populist fringe, appealing mainly to university educated but downwardly mobile youngsters who cannot afford a house or children:
The far-left populists clearly want to ape many of Trump’s tactics: a concentration on social media, the absolute demonising of their opponents, a reliance on conspiracy theories, talking directly to voters — in this case often the young, which mainstream media has difficulty reaching — promising impossible benefits etc.
They don’t want to convert the middle. They want to anger and energise a base. …
They are tugging the Democrats to the crazy end of left:
Of course, the fact that Democrat politicians embrace the DSA rhetoric and enjoy its support doesn’t mean they will try to implement its grotesque platform.
But they will trend in that direction. The DSA told Mamdani not to increase the size of the New York police force and he complied. …
The DSA is already exerting a big and destructive influence on the Democrat mainstream. It is concerned with Gaza, climate change, identity politics, LGBTQI, inclusion.
Sounds something like the ALP national conference.
Understanding the current left, by ZeroHedge:
Fox News has begun publishing explainers to educate its audience about the emerging far left, while Trump administration officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, have declared war on the radical left and foreign subversion networks linked to Cuba, China and elsewhere …
To help map its many layers, Karlyn Borysenko, who describes herself as an anti-communist analyst, published an easy-to-understand infographic:
