Community organizers Cristina Tzintzún Ramírez (L) and Brittany Packnett share how they’ve built a social movement, at The Summit on Race in America at the LBJ Presidential Library on April 9, 2019. Tzintzún is the founder and director of Jolt, a Texas-based organization that builds the political power and influence of Latinos. Ralph Barrera/LBJ Library via Wikimedia Commons

As the Democratic Party moves ever further to the left, it has become normal to see communists and socialists running for office on the party’s ballot line.

Usually, Marxists run for county commissions, school boards, state legislatures, and Congress.

Now they are starting to run even for the U.S. Senate in 2020.

Sema Hernandez is standing in the U.S. Senate Texas Democratic primary to hopefully take on incumbent Republican Sen. John Cornyn in 2020.

Hernandez, a health care worker, is an activist with the Poor People’s Campaign. She is also a member of both Houston Democratic Socialists of America and the Houston branch of the Communist Party USA.

Hernandez stood in the Democratic primary in 2018 against Beto O’Rourke and earned a respectable 250,000 votes—probably the best in recent times for a Communist Party comrade in Texas.

It’s still technically illegal to stand for public office as a communist in Texas—but it’s apparently OK for a communist to stand for office as long as they call themselves a Democrat.

Yana Ludwig is the only Democrat so far declared in the primary to stand for an open U.S. Senate seat in overwhelmingly Republican Wyoming.

Both she and her husband, Matt Stannard, the former debate coach at the University of Wyoming, are active in SE Wyoming Democratic Socialists of America.

A Laramie resident, Ludwig has been active in the “gay” and “feminist” movements since the early 1990s.

She has participated in numerous women’s marches, “peace” protests, and many “ecological activist actions,” including the People’s Climate March in New York City in 2014, according to her campaign website.

Ludwig has also been the director of numerous nonprofits, including Project Grow Community Gardens, Recycling Jackson, and the Center for Sustainable and Cooperative Culture.

It’s hard work being a socialist in Wyoming and almost impossible to win statewide office as a Democrat—let alone as an open Marxist.

Betsy Sweet is standing in the Maine Democratic Senate primary in the hope of challenging left-wing Republican incumbent Susan Collins in 2020.

Sweet said that “a women’s right to choose, health care for all, and climate change” are the main reasons why she decided to challenge Collins.

Sweet lost the Democratic primary for governor in 2018, even though she had the endorsement and active support of the Southern Maine Democratic Socialists of America.

Sweet is a former director of the Maine Women’s Lobby and the Maine Commission for Women.

In the early 1980s, she represented the far-left Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom on the Communist Party USA-controlled U.S. Peace Council—an affiliate of the Soviet-controlled World Peace Council.

Paula Jean Swearengin is standing in the West Virginia Democratic Senate primary to hopefully challenge incumbent Republican Shelley Moore Capito in 2020.

In the 2018 primary, she unsuccessfully challenged incumbent Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin.

Swearengin was formerly active with the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition and the Keepers of the Mountain Foundation. She has addressed the United Nations and spoken at rallies and colleges across the country on environmental issues.

An early Bernie Sanders supporter, Swearengin attended the DSA-run Chicago People’s Summit in 2017. She was also the subject of a documentary alongside DSA and Congress member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, DSA Nevada congressional candidate Amy Vilela, and DSA and Communist Party USA-affiliated Missouri congressional candidate Cori Bush.

Swearengin was also supported in 2018 by far-left Justice Democrats and DSA-influenced Brand New Congress.

Cristina Tzintzun is, like Hernandez, standing in the U.S. Senate Texas Democratic primary to hopefully take on Cornyn in 2020. Of all the candidates profiled in this article, she is by far the one most likely to succeed.

Tzintzun founded and ran the Austin-based Workers Defense Project, a leftist immigrants’ rights group in the orbit of the Maoist-leaning pro-China group Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO).

In 2013–14, Tzintzun spent a year studying with the FRSO-affiliated Rockwood Leadership Institute, an Oakland, California-based school for “community organizers.”

Tzintzun has worked closely with DSA activists in Austin, Texas, including Alice Embree, the Fetonte family, and the late Glenn Scott.

As the founder of Jolt Texas, Tzintzun organized the enrollment of thousands of new Democratic-leaning Hispanic voters across the state.

She was recruited out of Jolt Texas to stand for the U.S. Senate by well-connected former Bernie Sanders senior staffers Becky Bond and Zach Malitz and former ACORN Texas leader Ginny Goldman.

Bond and Malitz were both senior staffers in the 2018 Beto O’Rourke Senate campaign. They are also both colleagues of wealthy San Francisco socialist Michael Kieschnick—who is also a big fan of Tzintzun.

Bond is the co-author of “Rules for Revolutionaries: How Big Organizing Can Change Everything.”

Malitz, a DSA affiliate, will serve as a senior adviser on the Tzintzun senate campaign. Goldman, lately a leader of the Communist Party USA-infiltrated Texas Organizing Project, will serve as Tzintzun’s campaign chair.

The other Democrats in primary, and probably Cornyn, are in for a tough race.

A woman votes on November 8, 2016, in Durham, North Carolina. African Americans turn out to the polls was reporting low across the battleground state. (Photo by Sara D. Davis/Getty Images)

Pro-China communists from the Liberation Road group have insinuated their supporters and allies into several key positions in the city government of Durham, North Carolina.

Liberation Road has been highly influential in flipping neighboring Virginia from a Republican to a Democratic state; North Carolina is the next target.

Liberation Road has a strategy of destroying the Republican Party base in the South—what it terms the “New Confederacy”—by using the minority voting base to flip county by county, state by state to the Democrats.

If the communists can turn North Carolina blue, President Donald Trump will likely lose the 2020 election—handing Democrats and their socialist allies a near-permanent monopoly on power. By establishing a political base in Durham, the comrades aim to project their power and city resources across the entire state.

The 2020 presidential election may well be won or lost in North Carolina.

North Carolina Maoists

Since 1985, the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) has been the pre-eminent pro-China communist party in the country, absorbing cadre from several other Maoist groups along the way, including the Communist Workers Party, Line of March, and League of Revolutionary Struggle.

In April this year, the FRSO changed its name to Liberation Road—partially at least to sound fewer alarm bells as it proceeds to infiltrate the Democratic Party.

In 1988, FRSO had fewer than six members in North Carolina: a white lawyer from Revolutionary Workers Headquarters and a handful of black comrades from the Amilcar Cabral/Paul Robeson Collective. Through the 1990s, FRSO recruited more old Maoists and a new layer of university students from Durham, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill. They even recruited a couple of former Communist Party USA members, and in recent years seem to have absorbed some cadre from the pro-Iran and North Korea Workers World Party.

In the 2000s, FRSO began sending comrades from California, Massachusetts, and New York to beef up the numbers, soon making the Maoists the most significant force on the left in the region. This was part of a deliberate colonization of Southern states, particularly Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee, and Florida. FRSO targeted the South because of its high concentration of black and Hispanic potential voters, which, coupled with a history of racial polarization, made for great revolutionary potential.

North Carolina, one of the most politically marginal Republican-held states in the South was a prime target. Durham, with the largest concentration of black voters in the state, became ground zero for the Maoists. FRSO supporters began to infiltrate Durham student unions, community groups, labor unions, churches, and local government.

Maoist strategy is all about building a counter-state—taking over whole areas to form a state-within-state to serve as a base to spread revolution across a much wider area. Parts of Virginia are moving in that direction. Jackson, Mississippi, is already there. Durham is well on the way.

In recent years, FRSO has moved away from traditional street activism into more of an electoral focus. The organization now has the numbers and influence to impact elections at both the state and local levels.

FRSO is extremely secretive about membership, but I estimate there are around a hundred cadre in the Triangle area and another 200 supporters or allies. Many FRSO/Liberation Road people lead key organizations that are able to mobilize several thousand people at a time.

To achieve its ends, FRSO has infiltrated several existing organizations and has created others.

Durham People’s Alliance

In the early 1970s, Durham activists affiliated with the communist New American Movement formed two collectives—a health collective and a socialist feminist collective. In 1973, the health collective became the Durham Organizing Committee (DOC). The DOC later split, some members entering a Marxist-Leninist collective that eventually became the Communist Workers Party and others forming the Durham People’s Alliance (DPA).

Since that time, the DPA has become a major force in local politics. With the ability to raise money and a small army of door knockers and phone-bankers, DPA’s endorsement is widely sought by candidates on the left.

North Carolina Democratic congress members David Price and GK Butterfield and former Sen. Kay Hagan have all been endorsed and helped by DPA’s 2,000 members—as have dozens of lower-level politicians.

Around 2014, FRSO cadre Aiden Graham joined the DPA board; in the same year, DPA helped elect FRSO leader Sendolo Diaminah, a self-described “black queer communist,” to the Durham School Board, though he later resigned before finishing his term.

Durham Association of Educators

The Triangle area has experienced widespread education labor unrest in recent years, mainly because of the Durham Association of Educators (DAE), a local affiliate of the North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE) and the National Education Association.

Longtime FRSO/Liberation Road cadre Bryan Proffit is on the board of the NCAE and was president of the DAE.

With an army of fired-up leftist teachers on their roster, ready to rally or door-knock on command, the DAE has also become a major force in Durham left politics.

Durham For All

Launched in early 2016, Durham For All grew out of a group of FRSO supporters who had been working together for some years on local politics.

In 2014 and 2015, members of the founding team began experimenting with building political power through local elections, and led “victories to elect young, progressive people of color into local offices.”

Durham For All is a completely Liberation Road creation and is the counterpart of similar front groups Richmond For All in Virginia and Memphis For All in Tennessee.

Durham For All plans to build a force in Durham of 10,000 people to first take control of the city, then the entire state. The first goals were to take control of the City Council in 2017 to 2019 then to flip the state to the Democrats in 2020.

According to the Durham For All website:

“Corporations and right-wing politicians have rigged the political system, and we’ve had enough. Together, we are building a cross-class, multiracial movement in Durham that is 10,000 people strong. …

“Power comes from thousands of people speaking up and deciding to take action. That’s why our plan is based on building people power from the ground up. The plan has three stages:

“Stage 1: Build a Mandate. 2017. With the launch of our 10K Strong Campaign, we trained leaders like you to ask family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers to sign our 10K Strong Pledge and join the movement for a Durham for All. In less than a year, over 4,500 people said “yes” and signed on! These commitments were the foundation for a new political vision of a Durham rooted in the principles of a Durham for all of us. Grounded in these principles, we organized in working class and people of color communities to find new leaders and get out the vote. Together, we elected a progressive, people of color majority to Durham’s City Council!

“Stage 2: Build a Model. 2018. Through our Decriminalize Durham Campaign, we successfully piloted a base-building model that (1) activated and developed leaders in working class and people of color communities, (2) invited and supported hundreds of people to take new risks in organizing, and (3) translated election victories into policy wins via participatory democracy. We endorsed and elected officials who committed to fighting mass incarceration and stopping deportations ….

“Stage 3: Build a Movement. 2019-2020. In the third stage, we are harnessing the power of our movement to create platforms for co-governance and to pass policy. We are continuing to refine and expand our base-building model to bring new leaders and thousands of voters into the critical state and federal elections in 2020. Working with groups in rural areas, towns, and other cities, we will be part of unleashing millions of engaged residents and leaders in a movement to win back North Carolina from the far right.”

So far, the goal to take over the Durham City Council has gone as planned.

In 2015, the DPA elected Charlie Reece and Jillian Johnson and helped re-elect Steve Schewel to the six-member Durham City Council.

Reece was treasurer of the North Carolina Democratic Party and a past board member and secretary of the DPA.

Johnson was a long-time FRSO affiliate and later served in the leadership of Durham For All alongside comrades Sendolo Diaminah, Aidan Graham, Anna Grant, Tony Macias, and Bennett Carpenter. Steve Schewel was a former radical magazine editor.

In 2017, the DPA successfully backed Schewel for Durham mayor. The DPA also elected their longtime board member and Durham For All supporter DeDreana Freeman and another former DPA board member Vernetta Alston to the City Council.

In 2019, Johnson, Reece, and newcomer Javiera Caballero ran as a leftist “Bull City Together” ticket backed by the DPA.

Schewel, Johnson, Reece, and Caballero were all endorsed as a team by Durham For All.

Liberation Road’s Bryan Proffitt also endorsed the team, as did the DAE PAC, which also supported a “$95 million housing bond to combat gentrification and end the rapid displacement of our communities.”

The left won everything. They passed the housing bond and now hold five of the six City Council seats, plus the mayoralty.

In 2018, DPA members also helped elect Satana Deberry for district attorney and Clarence Birkhead for sheriff.

FRSO leader Sendolo Diaminah noted in a Facebook post:

“Tonight we made history in Durham by electing Satana Deberry for DA and Clarence Birkhead for sheriff – both committed to ending mass incarceration and fighting deportations. There are so many things to say about this but tonight I just feel humbled and nourished by the calling to build political power with our people.”

So, stage one of the FRSO Durham For All plan is pretty well accomplished, according to their original aims. Liberation Road and its allied organizations pretty much have a lock on North Carolina’s fourth-largest city and its 275,000 citizens.

Can the Maoists Take the State?

Liberation Road has a strong presence in the state. So do their allies the Democratic Socialists of America, which has branches in Charlotte, Durham, Greensboro, Raleigh, Chapel Hill, Asheville, Winston-Salem, and the Yadkin Valley.

Liberation Road is affiliated to several ACORN-type voter registration organizations in the state, including Down Home NC, Ignite NC, and Blueprint North Carolina.

Liberation Road leader Aiden Graham also serves as the campaign manager for the North Carolina State AFL-CIO.

Between Durham For All, the DPA, DAE, North Carolina AFL-CIO, and the voter registration groups listed above, Liberation Road and its allies have the power to mobilize several thousand election workers against Republican candidates.

If the left is working hard to re-elect Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and Attorney General Josh Stein, they’re even more determined to defeat Republican Sen. Thom Tillis—considered one the most vulnerable in the country. The Democrats need to flip five State Senate seats for a majority and six seats in the State House.

If the left can defeat Sen. Tillis and flip one or both houses of the state legislature, North Carolina will be well down the road to becoming a Democratic state, just like Virginia was about three years ago.

Pro-China communists from FRSO/Liberation Road stole Virginia from under the nose of the Republican Party. If North Carolina is allowed to go down the same path then Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and Texas will soon follow suit. The Republican Party will then be finished as a national force.

There is no excuse for the Republican Party to allow that to happen—if they care at all about their own survival that is.

Democratic Socialists of America holds a rally in New York on Oct. 30, 2017. (Working Families Party/CC BY-NC 2.0)

In September, the United States’ largest Marxist organization, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), posted a list of “progressives” running for the House of Representatives in 2020.

The list, posted on a DSA Reddit page, names more than 100 candidates in over 30 states, from Alaska to Florida, California to Maine. The list includes many hopeless candidates, but also includes several who have a good chance of winning seats, or at least running their primary or general election opponents close.

In 2018, the DSA elected two members to congress—Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)—plus two sympathizers, Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.)—collectively known as “The Squad.”

With an increased membership (now around 55,000) and considerably more electoral experience, the DSA could elect more members and several more supporters in 2020.

Some of the candidates are also closely aligned with two pro-China DSA allies, Liberation Road and the Communist Party USA.

Several on the list ran as first-timers in 2018 against well-established incumbents and lost in many cases by under 10 points. With “on the ground” and financial support from the DSA, Liberation Road, Communist Party USA, Working Families Party, Progressive Democrats of America, Our Revolution, and left-controlled unions such as the SEIU and National Nurses United, many of them will be competitive against Democratic and Republican opponents.

Comrade Candidates

In Arizona’s 1st Congressional District, far-left DSA-friendly Eva Putzova is mounting a serious primary challenge against incumbent moderate Democrat Tom O’Halleran.

In California’s 29th District, DSA comrade Angelica Duenas is aiming to replace incumbent Democrat Tony Cardenas, while DSA comrade Shahid Buttar is going up against Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in California’s 12th District. Strangely, another DSA member and former Massachusetts state legislator, Tom Gallagher, is contesting the same seat.

In California’s 50th District, the DSA-friendly grandson of a Palestinian terrorist, Ammar Campa-Najjar lost narrowly to a scandal-plagued Republican incumbent Duncan Hunter in 2018. Campa-Najjar is back for a second shot, but his Republican opponent may be different this time.

In California’s 53rd District, Jose Cabellero is challenging incumbent Democrat Susan Davis with both DSA and Liberation Road support.

Florida’s 27th District likely won’t change much this cycle as low-polling DSA-friendly Michael Hepburn runs again against Democrat incumbent Donna Shalala.

In Georgia’s 1st District, DSA-friendly Lisa Ring is making a second attempt at sending Republican incumbent Buddy Carter to early retirement. In Georgia’s 7th District, Nabilah Islam is running for the open seat, while Michael Owens is contesting Georgia’s 13th District against moderate Democrat David Scott. Both Islam and Owen have requested the endorsement of Metro Atlanta DSA.

In Illinois’s 3rd District, DSA congress member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and DSA Chicago Alderman Carlos Rosa have endorsed Marie Newman, who came within a whisker of defeating moderate Democrat Dan Lipinski in 2018. Overly optimistic DSA member Anthony Clark is running for the second time against far-left Danny Davis (himself a former DSA member) in Illinois’s 7th District. In Illinois’s 10th District, another DSA comrade, Adam Broad, is running hard against moderate Democrat incumbent Brad Schneider.

In Iowa’s 4th District, JD Scholten ran embattled incumbent Republican Steve King close—with DSA support. He’ll be lucky to come within 15 points this time around.

Top-ranking Democrat Steny Hoyer is probably not too concerned about losing in Maryland’s 5th District—even though his “democratic socialist” opponent Mckayla Wilkes has the endorsement of the more than 2,000-strong Metro DC DSA.

In Massachusetts’s 4th District, DSA-backed “democratic socialist” Ihssane Leckey has a narrow opening as her Democratic incumbent opponent Joe Kennedy III has decided to run for U.S. Senate. In Massachusetts’s 6th District, DSA-friendly Nathaniel Mulcahy has even less chance against Democratic incumbent Seth Moulton.

In Minnesota’s 2nd District, DSA supporter Johnny Akzam is making his second run for the Democrat-held seat.

In Missouri’s 1st District, Pastor Cori Bush ran about 10 points behind leftist Democrat incumbent Lacy Clay in 2018. With probable DSA, Communist Party USA, and Liberation Road support, Bush could well pull off an upset in this district.

Nebraska’s 2nd District could possibly go left with Kara Eastman’s second run for the seat. In 2018 she won the Democratic primary with DSA help, then lost the general to a Republican. Moderate Democrats will fight her hard in the primary.

In New York’s 12th District, DSA member Lauren Ashcraft is fighting a longshot battle against incumbent Democrat Carolyn Maloney. New York’s 24th District is a bit more hopeful for the far left. DSA-supported Dana Balter came within 5 points of Republican John Katko in 2018. If Balter can get through the Democratic primary, she may have a shot.

North Carolina’s 1st District sees DSA member DeAndre Carter go up against far-left incumbent Democrat GK Butterfield. In North Carolina’s 4th District, Boy Scout and DSA comrade Daniel Ulysses Lockwood has even less chance against incumbent leftist Democrat David Price.

Ohio’s 3rd District could possibly see a shock result as DSA, and possibly Liberation Road-backed, Morgan Harper goes up against incumbent Democrat Joyce Beatty.

In Oregon’s 3rd District, DSA member Albert Lee has a good shot against incumbent far-left Democrat Earl Blumenauer. DSA-supported Mark Gamba has less chance against moderate Democrat Kurt Schrader in Oregon’s 5th District. Long-time Liberation Road affiliate Doyle Canning is even braver to take on far-left incumbent Democrat Pete DeFazio in Oregon’s 4th District.

In South Carolina’s 2nd District, DSA member Lawrence Nathaniel is valiantly challenging incumbent Republican Joe Wilson in one of the most heavily Republican districts in the country.

Texas’s 25th District sees DSA member Heidi Sloan competing against one other leftist Democrat in the primary for an open Republican seat. Support from around 1,000 Austin DSA comrades may well see Sloan through at least the primary.

DSA endorsee Stevens Orozco is standing in Texas’s 18th District to unseat the deeply entrenched Sheila Jackson-Lee. Houston DSA and probably the powerful local Communist Party USA branch will likely help out.

Jessica Cisneros is running a bracing challenge in Texas’s 28th District against moderate Democrat Henry Cuellar. Cisneros’s campaign has borrowed DSA congress member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s DSA-friendly adviser Andres Bernal to help out.

Texas’s 10th District could see a possible far-left victory. Democratic candidate Mike Siegel, son of former Communist Workers Party leader Dan Siegel, came within 5 points of beating Republican Mike McCaul in 2018. With Siegel’s strong DSA and union backing, the Republican Party needs to take Mike Siegel very seriously indeed.

Over in Washington’s 10th District, DSA member Joshua Collins is challenging moderate Democrat Denny Heck. In nearby Washington’s 6th District, another DSA comrade, Rebecca Parson, is taking on moderate Democrat Derek Kilmer. The strong DSA and small Communist Party USA presence in these districts might help Collins and Parson a little.

Should We Worry?

While only a handful (if any) of the candidates on DSA’s list will get elected, their mere presence on the ballot will damage this country in several ways.

Firstly, they will serve to further legitimize socialism—something that should rank very near the top of the Evil Graph.

Secondly, election campaigns to communists are more about recruitment than winning elections. The DSA and its allies will win very few of the seats they contest, but they may end up seducing several thousand new souls to socialism. That will impact us all over time.

Thirdly, these candidates will serve to drive the Democratic Party even further to the left. That will benefit the Republicans in the short term, but in the long term, it makes the whole nation morally and politically poorer.

Freedom Road Socialist Organization supporters during an anti-Trump march in Washington on Jan. 20, 2017. slowking4/GFDL 1.2

The Republican Party seems oblivious to a major threat developing in its Southern stronghold. Pro-China communists from the Liberation Road group are working to flip Republican-held states in the South one by one. Virginia has already fallen.

North Carolina, Florida, and Tennessee are next on the list. If the communists can flip toss-up states Florida and North Carolina in 2020, President Donald Trump will likely be a one-term president and the Republican Party will be finished as a national force.

While probably numbering fewer than 2,000 members, the ultra-secretive Liberation Road may be able to remove China’s number one enemy from the White House for a measly few million dollars.

Known until April as the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), Liberation Road is an amalgamation of several Maoist and anarchist factions, some dating back to the anti-Vietnam War movement of the 1960s.

Turn to Electoral Politics

In 2016, FRSO made a strong turn toward electoral politics in response to the electoral dominance of the Republican Party (especially in the South) and the election of President Trump.

FRSO/Liberation Road, like most parties of Maoist origin, is heavily focused on racial and sexual minorities. The Black Lives Matter movement is an FRSO front group. Ending “white privilege” is a major part of the Liberation Road strategy. The proliferation of gender pronouns we now have to deal with also comes partially from Liberation Road.

According to Liberation Road, socialism will come to the United States by rallying minorities against “white capitalism” and minority voters against what they term “The New Confederacy.”

According to the Liberation Road website:

“The New Confederacy is the white united front that, building up over the past 40 years, has used white supremacy, cisheteropatriarchy, and austerity to rally sectors of the white middle strata and white workers around the leadership of the most reactionary forces of capital. The Republican Party is its political instrument.”

Originally based mainly in Massachusetts, New York, and California, FRSO has been moving comrades into Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, and other Southern states for some years. Mostly they fought the “New Confederacy” through protest and agitation. Tearing down Confederate statues is a favorite Maoist tactic, for example.

Now, after building considerable strength in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Florida, Liberation Road is strong enough to influence elections and elect members and supporters to public office.

Grand Strategy

Liberation Road’s 2019 Main Political Report lays out the organization’s “line” and plans very clearly. If you can stomach the pseudo-scientific Marxist prose that is.

“The waves of protest that spread across the county after the 2016 election showed the force of the people’s rage and resistance. But this resistance has grown, for the most part without a strategy to contend for power. We need to move from protest to power. We need to build independent political organization.”

Liberation Road essentially blames the South for all that is wrong with America. They believe that without the South, the United States could soon become a non-racist, gender fluid, climate-change battling, non-patriarchal socialist paradise.

“With the power the New Confederacy  has  gained  through  the  use  of  the  Republican  Party,  holding  trifectas  in 22 states, they destroy unions, deny climate change, push the most homophobic and transphobic propaganda and policy, overrule progressive local movements or laws by state legislative ‘preemption’, and organize to repeal every last trace of the New Deal and the Civil Rights movement.”

Liberation Road has the solution. The Republican stranglehold on the South must be broken county by county, state by state, by mobilizing the large black and Latino populations in the South in alliance with the existing white “progressive” minorities.

“In response, some new efforts by progressive forces have emerged, state by state, to bring together the multi-racial working class with minority nationalities and others to fight back. These efforts have several things in common.

“They have a broad vision of contending for power. They work in the street and in the election booth. They work inside and outside the Democratic Party. They fight austerity, white supremacy and/or cisheteropatriarchy. And they build on the strategic alliance of the working class – of all nationalities, races, and languages – with mass movements based in communities of color.”

The question is, how can Liberation Road comrades use their manpower and influence to unite enough forces on the left and the center to defeat the New Confederacy? In their 2019–2022 draft Strategic Orientation plan, they state:

“We contend that it is only a united front led by an advanced layer of forces in opposition to white supremacy, austerity, and cisheteropatriarchy that can defeat this enemy. A politics that both rejects and challenges—that offers a genuine alternative—to white supremacy, austerity, and cisheteropatriarchy is the only durable solution, and a united front must lead with those politics.

“The clearest path to organizing that united front is through engaging in the electoral arena. Why do we place so much emphasis on the electoral arena in this moment? Because we believe this is the arena of struggle in which we are most clearly presented with the opportunity to construct the united front—to bring together social and political forces across and beyond self-interest. …

“Struggles become generalized when they enter into the broadest arena of politics. … The clearest and most practical way to do this is through elections, which necessarily involve and implicate the entire public.”

Working Through the Democratic Party

Liberation Road has learned from communist mistakes of the past and is committed to a very flexible strategy in its relations with the Democratic Party.

“Our approach is distinct from the Popular Front policy of the Communist Party prior to and during WWII when it was a non-critical junior partner in the broad front of Left and center forces against Nazism and Fascism.

“That is, we are not calling for a political program that is just about electing any Democratic politician. Instead, we are calling for a clear progressive program that we fight for, through primaries, non-partisan races, and outside struggles; and commitment to a fight against our common enemy.

“This will look different depending on conditions: in Blue states, it may be the case that the advanced forces could struggle to a position to play a decisive leading role in a united front against the  New  Confederacy;  in  purple  and  red  states,  we  may  play  secondary  roles  as  we develop our forces and build organization and strength to ultimately contest for leadership in that front.”

The Power of ‘For All’

As serious revolutionaries, Liberation Road comrades know that the masses can best be unified around clear and meaningful slogans. Liberation Road has chosen two simple words to unify the base it wants to mobilize—“For All.”

This is already evident in Liberation Road’s newly created voter mobilization organizations: Richmond For All in Virginia and the more established Durham For All in North Carolina and Memphis For All in Tennessee.

“We believe that the way to build the ‘us’ is the For All. This represents a unity of the advanced and the link between the particular subjects of the united front.

“Here we propose that the For All frame be the generally adopted one for our organization and that our work engage in the struggle for political power. We suggest that it is on the basis of For All that we can facilitate a broad unity on the foundation of the specific grievances of oppressed peoples that also invites a generalized public support and participation.”

Why We Must Have an Enemy

If anybody is wondering about the incessant propaganda from the left against President Trump, the Republican Party, conservatives, and traditional Christians—all components of the New Confederacy—Liberation Road makes its purpose clear.

“For there to be an us, there also has to be a them that we can define through relation to us. This is why it’s critically important to have an enemy—the racists-billionaires, the New Confederacy, and their political organization, the Republican Party. The naming of an enemy gives us the narrow target needed to direct the united front forces against. This, in turn, sets the foundation to define the lines of demarcation between the enemy and the people’s united front.”

Why the Republican Party Should Take Liberation Road Seriously

While they will never admit it, Liberation Road is working in the interests of China and the world revolutionary movement. They fully understand that the United States, and specifically President Trump, must be taken down if the revolution is to succeed.

Liberation Road’s many front organizations are richly funded through several major foundations and the Democracy Alliance—a network of more than 150 leftist billionaires and multi-millionaires including presidential candidate Tom Steyer, George Soros, socialist lawyer Steve Phillips, and many others. Liberation Road and their on-the-ground allies do not lack for resources.

Liberation Road has already flipped once reliably Republican Virginia. It took them 10 years, but they have already replicated much of their winning strategy in several other Southern states—some of which could go blue in 2020, or more likely 2022.

Liberation Road already heavily influences the local government in Durham, North Carolina’s most important city, and also has a strong influence in Memphis, Nashville, and Knoxville, Tennessee.

Liberation Road is also influential in Jackson, Mississippi, a town run by radical mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba.

In Florida and Georgia, FRSO was a major part of the coalitions that almost elected Andrew Gillum and Stacey Abrams to their respective governor’s mansions in 2018. In Florida, FRSO and its allies lifted Democratic voting by around 40 percent, which normally would have guaranteed victory.

Only because President Trump ignored the Republican Party hierarchy and endorsed strong insurgent conservative Ron De Santis were the voters able to narrowly stave off a shock Democratic victory.

While Republicans seem to be focusing on the Midwestern states, the big shock of election night 2020 might come from the South.

Members of the Democratic Socialists of America gather outside of a Trump-owned building on May Day in New York City on May 01, 2019. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

This country’s largest Marxist organization, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), played a major role in pushing the Green New Deal into the highest reaches of the Democratic Party.

The Green New Deal is supported by more than 90 members of the House of Representatives and 15 senators, including presidential candidates Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

Now, the DSA has endorsed a related project, the “Red Deal,” which comes from even further left. How long will it take the DSA to bring the Red Deal into the Democratic Party?

The Red Deal

The Red Deal is the project of the New Mexico-based Native American activist organization The Red Nation—a group of fewer than 50 core members. However, with close ties to Cuba, Venezuela, and Palestinian militants, The Red Nation has some revolutionary credibility on the left.

The Red Nation is openly communist.

The organization’s Third General Assembly formally adopted “revolutionary socialism and liberation as the primary political ideology of The Red Nation.” The document went on to “articulate the basic principles of revolutionary socialism and Marxism and its connection to Indigenous socialism and communism.”

The Red Nation website explains the origins of the Red Deal:

“The proposed Green New Deal legislation is a step in the right direction to combat climate change and to hold corporate polluters responsible. A mass mobilization, one like we’ve never seen before in history, is required to save this planet. Indigenous movements have always been at the forefront of environmental justice struggles.

“Democratic socialist congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the main proponent of the GND, is herself a Water Protector who began her successful congressional run while she was at Standing Rock protesting the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Thus, the GND and the climate justice movement in North America trace their origins to Indigenous frontline struggles.

“With this background in mind, [The Red Nation] is proposing a Red Deal. It’s not the ‘Red New Deal’ because it’s the same ‘Old Deal’—the fulfillment of treaty rights, land restoration, sovereignty, self-determination, decolonization, and liberation. Ours is the oldest class struggle in the Americas; centuries-long resistance for a world in which many worlds fit.”

So what is the Red Deal? Like the Green New Deal, it’s constantly evolving, but essentially it’s an attempt to impose full-blown communism on the United States under the cover of restoration of made-up Native American “rights” and bogus environmentalism.

“The Red Deal is not a counter program of the Green New Deal. It’s a call for action beyond the scope of the US colonial state. It’s a program for Indigenous liberation, life, and land—an affirmation that colonialism and capitalism must be overturned for this planet to be habitable for human and other-than-human relatives to live dignified lives.

“The Red Deal is a platform that calls for demilitarization; police and prison abolition; abolishing ICE; tearing down all border walls; Indigenous liberation, decolonization, and land restoration; treaty rights; free healthcare; free education; free housing; full citizenship and equal protection to undocumented relatives; a complete moratorium on oil, gas, coal, and carbon extraction and emissions; a transition to an economy that benefits everyone and that ends the exploitation of the Global South and Indigenous nations for resources; safe and free public transportation; restoration of Indigenous agriculture; food sovereignty; restoration of watersheds and waterways; denuclearization; Black self-determination and autonomy; gender and sexual equality; Two-Spirit, trans*, and queer liberation; and the restoration of sacred sites.

“Thus the Red Deal is ‘Red’ because it prioritizes Indigenous liberation, on one hand, and a revolutionary left position, on the other.”

And where is the money coming from for this leap into full-blown socialism?

“Where will we get the resources to achieve these monumental tasks? We call for a divestment away from the police, prisons, and military (two of the largest drains on ‘public spending’) and fossil fuels and a reinvestment in common humanity for everyone (health, wellbeing, and dignity) and the restoration of Indigenous lands, waters, airs, and nations.”

In a Nov. 15 statement on its website, the DSA fully endorsed the Red Deal and committed to a partnership with The Red Nation:

“The Democratic Socialists of America is proud to endorse the Red Deal, an indigenous centered set of policy recommendations that was written by The Red Nation. We are also proud to endorse the work of The Red Nation and commit to a long-term partnership with them in the furtherance of decolonizing our society. The Red Nation is a group of radical indigenous people that are fighting back against the US imperialist settler colonialist state. They are not just fighting for land and sovereignty, but for survival.”

The DSA, which claims to be a “democratic socialist” and noncommunist organization, appears to have no qualms about endorsing communist principles and partnering with a revolutionary communist organization.

Red Nation

The Red Nation was founded in 2014 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in a fusion between Native American militants and comrades from the pro-North Korea and -Iran Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL). The Red Nation and PSL held numerous events together and worked out of the same office. Several Red Nation activists were also PSL comrades, including Paige Murphy, Sam Gardipe, Michael Butler, and Melissa Tso.

In recent years, The Red Nation also formed a close bond to the Trotsky-oriented International Socialist Organization (ISO).

For several years, the ISO website Socialist Worker has carried coverage of The Red Nation’s conferences and protests. Most were written by Wisconsin-based Native American activist and ISO member Brian Ward and his California-based comrade Ragina Johnson.

At The Red Nation’s Native Liberation Conference held Aug. 11–12, 2018, in Albuquerque, ISO hosted the panel “Solidarity Will Win: Socialism and Indigenous Peoples” featuring ISO comrades Khury Petersen-Smith, Johnson, and Ward and moderated by The Red Nation leader Nick Estes.

In early 2019, ISO collapsed as the result of a long-simmering sexual harassment scandal. Many ISO comrades moved into the DSA, bringing their The Red Nation contacts with them.

At the DSA’s national convention in Atlanta, in July 2019, seven comrades moved the resolution “Amendment on the Red Deal and Rejecting a Green Military.”

Two of the seven, Sofia Arias and Brian Ward, were former ISO comrades. Two more, Rory Fanning and Spenser Rapone, had addressed a major ISO-sponsored conference in Chicago in 2018.

The resolution amendment called on the DSA to:

“endorse the Red Deal, launched by comrades in The Red Nation, a radical anti-capitalist Indigenous liberation group, and its principles on the fight for non-reformist reforms. As described by The Red Nation, ‘The Red Deal is not a counter program of the GND. It’s a call for action beyond the scope of the US colonial state. It’s a program for Indigenous liberation, life, and land—an affirmation that colonialism and capitalism must be overturned for this planet to be habitable for human and other-than-human relatives to live dignified lives.’

“At the end of this Convention, the Green New Deal Coordinating Committee will be tasked with initiating a more direct working relationship between DSA and The Red Nation. The GNDCC will make direct connection with The Red Nation, dedicate one person to serve as the main point of contact, and collaborate with the comrades on joint actions, statements and local, national and international campaigns around indigenous liberation and climate justice.”

So far, the only Congress member to show an interest in the Red Deal is far-left New Mexico Democratic Rep. Deb Haaland.

In June, Haaland sent a representative to a Red Deal workshop in Albuquerque. According to New Mexico Report, Haaland said The Red Nation activists “are absolutely right, for far too long the U.S. government has not lived up to its obligations to Indian tribes, and this is a new era.”

Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe, is a co-sponsor of the Green New Deal and said she plans to make sure “tribes are included as it is developed.”

The Green New Deal became ubiquitous in a few short weeks thanks to a social media blitz by the DSA and other forces on the left.

How long will it be before the Red Deal is on the lips of Democratic House members, senators, and presidential candidates?

An artist’s impression of the Battle of Midway, during World War II, June 1942. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Over the Thanksgiving period, I pondered a lot on my debt to America. The first thing I owe this great country is probably my very existence. When growing up in 1960s New Zealand, it was accepted wisdom that we owed our freedom and our very lives to the “Yanks.”

In 1942, tens of thousands of young Kiwi and Aussie men were in North Africa fighting the Nazis and the Italian Fascist armies. The Japanese Imperial Army was marching relentlessly through the South Pacific and Southeast Asia. The Philippines fell; Hong Kong, Singapore, the Dutch East Indies, New Guinea, all were invaded in a matter of months, capturing thousands of British, Dutch, and colonial troops in the process.

The Japanese air force bombed Darwin in Northern Australia. There were reports of Japanese submarines in New Zealand harbors. In 1942, 22 New Zealand prisoners of war were beheaded by the Japanese on Tarawa. In 1943, Japanese prisoners rioted at a prisoner of war camp in our little North Island town of Featherston. More than 30 Japanese and one New Zealand guard were killed before order was restored. Rumors flew that the Japanese had already printed up the currency they were going to use when they invaded us.

My parents were very young at the time, but I’m sure my grandparents knew how brutal a Japanese invasion would be. They’d all heard of the 1937 Rape of Nanking where, according to some accounts, the Japanese Army “butchered an estimated 150,000 male ‘war prisoners,’ massacred an additional 50,000 male civilians, and raped at least 20,000 women and girls of all ages, many of whom were mutilated or killed in the process.”

The war in North Africa was hard going for our troops. Britain was barely surviving. The people were starving and suffering from nightly murderous bombing raids. Almost all of Europe was over-run. Things looked very bleak for freedom in early 1942.

Today’s kids have night terrors over imaginary “global warming.” I can hardly imagine how my parents must have felt tucked up in bed in New Zealand wondering when the Japanese armies were going to march into their school to round them up.

And then the Yanks came.

In a series of bloody battles fought across the Pacific from 1942 to 1945—the Coral Sea, Midway, Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, Guam, and on Japan’s doorstep, Okinawa—the Americans forced Japan’s armies all the way back to their homeland.

Can you comprehend the relief felt by the people in Australia and New Zealand? Can you imagine the encouragement it gave our men fighting their way up through Italy to know that their families back home were safe?

Thousands of young American boys laid down their lives in the Pacific so that my family could live free.

That is very personal to me.

And it was very personal to most Kiwis and Aussies, too. Any American stepping into any pub in Australia or New Zealand in the ‘50s or ‘60s would never have had to pay for a beer. The Yanks were loved. We understood what the Americans had done for us and we were profoundly grateful.

I remember as a kid hearing a friend of my dad express how much he admired Jackie Kennedy—because “she was married to him.”

Jack Kennedy was a hero to us. Not so much because of his own qualities but because he was the president of the United States of America—the greatest country in the world.

And we native-born Southerners weren’t the only ones who appreciated America. Our next-door neighbors were Dutch New Zealanders who had been driven out of the East Indies by the Japanese. On the other side, our Polish neighbor Stefan had been a slave laborer in a Nazi factory. He told me many amazing stories across our fence. The Latvian family a few doors down also owed their liberty to American soldiers.

I’ve given maybe 500 speeches across this amazing nation over the last 10 years.

On almost every occasion I explain to the audience why I, as a New Zealander, care so much about this country.

The first reason I give is simple gratitude.

I tell the audience that my country was saved from invasion during World War II by the huge sacrifice of their “fathers and grandfathers and uncles at the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway and Guadalcanal.”

I often get some applause for that line, but that’s not why I keep repeating it.

One of my first major speeches was to the Florida Tea Party convention in Jacksonville in 2011 or 2012.

After the speech, I was manning my book table when a tough-looking scruffy sort of guy walked up to me. He was wearing a baseball cap and a beard. He looked like a truck-driver or even a biker—and he was crying like a baby.

He looked at me and said, “My uncle died fighting at Guadalcanal, and nobody’s ever said thank you until now.”

I’ll tell you straight—I cried. We both cried together, and we shook hands and we parted.

That’s my Thanksgiving to America.