By: Trevor Loudon | The Epoch Times

Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden pauses while speaking at the SEIU Unions for All Summit in Los Angeles, Calif., on Oct. 4, 2019. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

While the nation is preoccupied with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus, American “former” Maoists are trying to choose Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s running mate for him.

San Francisco lawyer Steve Phillips and his long-time collaborator Aimee Allison are pushing for a “woman of color” to round out Biden’s presidential ticket. More than that, Phillips and Allison are promoting a shortlist that consists entirely of radicals with direct ties to their own socialist clique.

At Stanford University for most of the 1980s, Phillips was a proud Marxist-Leninist and supporter of the pro-CCP League of Revolutionary Struggle. After finally leaving school, Phillips married into the mega-wealthy Sandler family of San Francisco and their $2.6 billion fortune. Phillips has used that wealth and influence to back far-left “candidates of color” for positions of high office through his organization’s PowerPAC and Democracy in Color. He is also a leader of the Democracy Alliance, a semi-secret cabal of the leftist mega-rich, which includes financier George Soros and former presidential candidate Tom Steyer.

Allison was a friend of Phillips at Stanford and was active in the same Maoist circles. She has worked closely with Phillips in PowerPAC and Democracy in Color, and now in the closely affiliated “She the People”—specifically established to elect hard-left “women of color” to high public office.

In 2008, Phillips raised an early $10 million to help Barack Obama get ahead of Hillary Clinton in that year’s presidential primaries.

In 2013, Phillips raised several million to elect his old Stanford classmate Cory Booker to the U.S. Senate from New Jersey. He also helped elect another close friend, Kamala Harris, first as California attorney general in 2010 and then to the U.S. Senate in 2016.

In 2018, Phillips heavily backed two long-time proteges and former PowerPAC+ board members Stacey Abrams and Andrew Gillum for the governorships of Georgia and Florida, respectively. Both lost by a whisker. Abrams and Gillum both worked closely with Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and pro-China front groups such as Liberation Road and the New Florida Majority during their campaigns.

Phillips backed Booker in the latest presidential primary, but he failed to fire. His other hope, Kamala Harris (who I believed would be the Democratic candidate), also failed to perform.

So now Phillips and Allison are trying for a second bite at the cherry. They’re promoting the line that Biden must choose a “woman of color” for his running mate. Moreover, that candidate has to be either Abrams or Harris.

Phillips’ Democracy in Color website features an “Open Letter to Democratic Presidential Candidates: A Call for Committing to Choosing a Woman of Color as Candidate for Vice President.”

“Dear Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders.

“Here is a fact: the Democratic Party needs the leadership, vision, and expertise of women and people of color now more than ever. While you cannot change who you are, you can show us who you value by committing to choose a woman of color as your running mate for Vice President.

“The majority of Democratic voters are women, and nearly half of all Democratic voters are people of color. At the intersection of those communities—which make up 77% of all Democratic voters in the last two presidential elections—women of color have a unique and critical role to play in galvanizing the entire progressive coalition. …

“We strongly urge you to show the leadership this moment demands by publicly committing today to pick a woman of color to serve as your Vice President.”

The letter was co-signed by Phillips-affiliated groups She the People, PowerPAC+, Southern Elections Fund, and The Collective PAC, and the Abrams-linked New Georgia Project Action Fund.

Other groups signing on were Higher Heights for America, Indivisible, Latino Victory Project, and two fronts for the pro-China communist group Liberation Road—the New Florida Majority and the New Virginia Majority—plus the Communist Party USA-influenced Texas Organizing Project.

Phillips contributed a March 16 op-ed to The Nation, in which he laid out his instructions for Joe Biden:

“After months of dancing around the issue of diversifying the Democratic ticket, the remaining viable candidates finally got more specific on Sunday, with Joe Biden firmly pledging to choose a woman as his running mate, and Bernie Sanders saying that ‘in all likelihood’ he would follow suit.

“What neither of these septuagenarian white men could bring themselves to do, however, was to say that that woman would be a person of color.”

Phillips, of course, knows exactly what “people of color” want—because his friend Aimee Allison and her She the People group told him so:

“People of color are also eager to see a Democratic ticket that reflects electoral reality. As my research has found, nearly half of Democratic voters are people of color; it is certainly relevant that the last time the Democrats won the White House was when an African American topped the ticket. Groups such as She the People, a national network of women of color in politics, have crystallized the demands for gender and racial diversity into a call for a woman of color as the vice presidential nominee.”

Then Phillips rolled out the “facts” to bolster his argument:

“The math of the moment lends empirical support to choosing a woman of color. The 2008 exit polls showed that it was women who made Barack Obama president, with 56 percent voting for him. My research has found that 46 percent of his coalition consisted of people of color; just 23 percent of Obama voters that year were white men.

“Clinton was defeated in 2016 in part because of two key shortcomings: a dramatic drop-off in black voter turnout (the first decline in 20 years) and the fact that a meaningful number of white women decided to give Trump a chance. As the Democrats seek to unseat Trump, a running mate who appeals to women and inspires voters of color seems like the obvious electoral strategy to pursue.”

Then Phillips gives Biden his list of approved candidates—with his proteges Abrams and Harris right at the top:

“The list of women of color who could strengthen a Biden or Sanders ticket is long and impressive. Stacey Abrams received more votes statewide than any Democrat had before during her gubernatorial run in Georgia, and was popular with young voters. As a 40-something leader tapped into popular culture, she could help Biden with the youth vote that he has failed to excite. Kamala Harris, Massachusetts Representative Ayanna Pressley, Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth, and New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham are some of the other talented women of color who could significantly enhance the Democratic ticket this year.”

Ayanna Pressley has a history with Liberation Road and the DSA. Michelle Lujan Grisham benefited from Phillips/PowerPAC+ support in the 2014 election cycle.

But really, Phillips is just using Pressley, Lujan Grisham, and Duckworth for camouflage. It’s Abrams or Harris that he really wants. 

Aimee Allison was equally explicit in a March 11 article in Newsweek:

“Only a historic increase in the number of voters of color, especially women of color, will deliver the swing states that Democrats must carry to win. This is what we saw in 2018 when Democrats took back the House of Representatives with a 37 percent rise in turnout among women of color from the 2014 midterms. This is what we are hoping for in 2020.

“So how do we get there? How do we motivate voters of color and ensure that 2020 can still be a year of positive political transformation? We get there with a woman of color vice president on the Democratic ticket. …

“Women of color have the numbers to generate a Democratic victory—if we show up at the polls. In swing states across the country, women of color dominate Democratic voter rolls. We are a third of Democratic voters in Florida, North Carolina, and Texas. In Georgia, we’re 44 percent. For us to show up as we did in 2018, we need Democrats to prove that they still care about us, see us and value us. …

“Women of color are already leaders in statewide and local organizations that register and turn out communities of color and white progressives alike. In 2018, high turnout from women of color flipped seats and secured the House for Democrats. Candidates like Lucy McBath in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District flipped seats that white male Democrats previously spent millions to lose. Meanwhile, candidates like Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez inspired millions of voters beyond the borders of their own districts—even crossing over into pop culture—with their history-making races and bold leadership.

“Let’s keep the strategy that led us to victory in 2018. A shortlist of vice presidential candidates can begin with Stacey Abrams, Kamala Harris and Deb Haaland. Any one of these extraordinary leaders would genuinely excite women of color voters.”

Deb Haaland is a Native American congresswoman from New Mexico with close ties to Allison and She the People. Haaland is also close to the Communist Party USA’s main Native American organizer Judith LeBlanc. But again, she’s just camouflage for Abrams and Harris.

The efforts of Phillips and Allison should not be dismissed or under-emphasized. These people helped their friend Barack Obama to defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primary. They helped elect Senators Cory Booker in New Jersey, Kamala Harris in California, Mazie Hirono in Hawaii, and Doug Jones in Alabama.

They almost elected far-left governors in Georgia and Florida in 2018.

Phillips and Allison have access to huge amounts of money and extensive networks inside the Democracy Alliance, Democratic Party, and the U.S. far left. They have a track record of electing their friends and comrades to high public office.

To those who believe in socialism and identity politics, rather than the Constitution and individual liberty, they also have a certain logic on their side.

The Democrats are almost certainly going to run with Joe Biden. The next question is, will Abrams or Harris stand at his side? Or, even more likely, behind him pointing him toward the audience and whispering in his ear what to say next and when to stop talking.

If Biden wins, Phillips and Allison will not just choose his running mate — they will effectively be deciding your president.

Trevor Loudon is an author, filmmaker, and public speaker from New Zealand. For more than 30 years, he has researched radical left, Marxist, and terrorist movements and their covert influence on mainstream politics. He is best known for his book “Enemies Within: Communists, Socialists and Progressives in the U.S. Congress” and his similarly-themed documentary film “Enemies Within.” His soon-to-be-published book is “White House Reds: Communists, Socialists & Security Risks Running for U.S. President, 2020.”