Author, columnist, speaker

Democratic Socialism Is Communism-Lite

By Robert Knight

Political terms are quickly evolving, especially during this election cycle.

“Democrat” once meant “liberal,” which became “progressive.” This is giving way to “Democratic Socialism, which is shorthand for communism—although it pretends not to be.

Several candidates in recent Democratic primaries ran using communist rhetoric, and others campaigned—and won—under the banner of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

Defeated Democrats included U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman of New York, a left-winger who was the lead counsel to House managers in President Donald Trump's first impeachment inquiry in 2019.

His crime was being pro-Israel, something that until recently would not have been controversial in a city with more Jews than any other in the world.

The big news this past week was Graham Platner’s withdrawing from the Maine U.S. Senate race. Most major Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, had embraced the disgraced socialist candidate.

At an April campaign rally in Portland, Mr. Platner was hailed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Democrat, who said he was “my kind of man” and later repeated that characterization several times.

This was long after photos had surfaced of his DSA affiliation, his past statements about being a communist and an anti-Zionist who backed Hamas, and many sexual abuse allegations from women.

And there was the Nazi chest tattoo that he had sported for years but denied knowing what it meant. The image was a skull and crossbones Totenkopf, a symbol for the death camp guards of the SS.

As a Babylon Bee headline said: “Dems Wishing There Had Been Some Sort of Sign That Platner Was a Bad Person.”

After Mr. Platner withdrew from the race, the satirical site ran a spoof photo with this: “Nazi Really Regretting Getting Graham Platner Tattoo.”

Although two women—one a Republican, the other a Democrat—came forward with credible abuse stories reported in the New York Times in early June, Democrats shrugged.

It took a rape accusation against Mr. Platner by the aforementioned Democrat woman, reported in Politico on July 6, to finally trigger buyer’s remorse.

Democrats are now scrambling to find another socialist nutcase by July 27 to face Republican Sen. Susan Collins in November.

The DSA was founded in 1982 by socialist Michael Harrington, who took pains to include language in its platform disavowing communism. In 2025, the party’s convention dropped the clause.

This made perfect sense, since the DSA’s platform is virtually indistinguishable from that of the Communist Party USA. They are both committed to end free-market capitalism, defund police, erase national borders, promote all things LGBTQ, impose socialized healthcare, and embrace anti-Zionism, which is shorthand for hatred of Jews. So why pretend anymore?

One good reason to keep pretending would be to win elections.

Most voters, especially those over 35 years old, would support the American way of life over communism’s horrific track record. From the Soviet Union to China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, the Chavez-Maduro regime in Venezuela, and others, it’s an unbroken litany of tyranny.

Once ensconced, the “power to the people” socialists abolish private property, persecute religious people, impose a state-controlled media, create mass poverty, and commit mass murder.

It is only because America’s leftist-dominated educators and media have done such a good job covering this up that so many young people have a benign view of socialism and even communism.

They like the idea of free stuff at someone else’s expense, as promised by Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent and Democratic Socialist who helped launch Mr. Platner’s campaign.

In “The Communist Manifesto” (1848), Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels criticized socialist movements as insufficiently revolutionary.

Marx later wrote that socialism was a major step on the road to communism.

This view was adopted by Vladimir Lenin after his Bolsheviks took over the Russian Revolution of 1917 and murdered the merely socialist “useful idiots.”

Socialism and communism spring from the same poisoned roots – atheism and collectivism. Both ideologies are at war with Christianity’s and Judaism’s Bible-based belief that people are created in the image of God and thus human life is sacred.

The Bible also supports private property and the rule of law.

The only real difference between socialism and communism is the means of acquiring power. Socialists such as New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a communist and Islamist, are gaining power via the ballot box amid a shocking takeover of the Democratic Party.

Mr. Mamdani finally threw Mr. Platner overboard on Tuesday, telling him to drop out.

It’s vital that Americans realize what will happen if this truly red movement, increasingly powered by an Islamist movement, isn’t stopped.

Socialism is the final stage of collectivism before the guns come out to crush all resistance, including the “useful idiots” who enabled it.

As Mao Tse Tung said, “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”

Democratic Socialists won primaries in solidly Democratic districts in New York and Colorado. However, it may well be a very different story around the nation in November’s midterms, especially in toss-up districts that Mr. Trump won in 2024.

Republicans need to connect the dots for voters. They need to make Mr. Platner and other radical candidates symbolize where the Democratic Party would take the nation if they win back Congress in 2026 and the presidency in 2028.

Illustration by Linas Garsys in The Washington Times.