Today’s “One Nation” rally in Washington, DC, was supposed to be about “a coalition of liberal and progressive groups, including unions and civil rights activists.” Said one supporter: “We believe this is the real America.”
Golly, I didn’t know that “real America” was so enamored of the hammer and sickle.
No doubt many will say that those openly espousing socialism were a minority among the crowd, which is probably true. But ask yourself this: What would the MSM headlines be if even 1/100th of 1% of attendees at a similar size Tea Party rally showed up in Nazi regalia or carrying white supremacist signs? It would be the top story in just about every media outlet that day. But when actual communists show up at an ostensible liberal/progressive rally, no one blinks an eye. They’re just an accepted part of the landscape.
The phrase “fellow traveler” has been stigmatized to the point that anyone who utters it is automatically considered a far-right wacko. But what phrase should be used for liberals when self-avowed socialists and communists are marching quite literally at your side in every rally?
I’m sure that the average Democratic Party voter has nothing but disdain for communism. However, I’m equally sure that the people working at the heart of many liberal/progressive institutions, the people who stuff envelopes and make hiring decisions, the people at Soros-funded institutions, the people chummy with tenured radicals at Berkley and Yale, the people that fill out Democratic congressional and administrative posts, do not feel the same disdain. To them, the old adage of “No Enemies On The Left” still holds.
Bill Buckley kicked the Birchers out of the conservative movement in 1962. When are liberals going to tell members of CPUSA that they’re no longer welcome at progressive rallies?
The Birchers are stealthing under the political radar by pretending to be Libertarians these days.
I’ve used the phrase “fellow traveler” in a more general sense, to describe any unwanted political ally as part of a cluster anywhere along the political spectrum; it’s useful in that way, for example, to denote crazed religious fanatics in the conservative bloc.
You fell into the trap that way too many people are still making: equating the NAZIs with the Right/Tea Party.
The NAZIs were leftist Socialists. They and the Communists were different sides of the same coin. The best way that I’ve heard it described is that the two were analogous to the Crips and Bloods. Both wanted the same thing, but were trying to kill their competition off.
Remember: before Hitler betrayed Stalin, most on the Left in this country were big fans of Hitler’s.