Durham, North Carolina. Following the shift from Maoism to a market economy in China in the 1980s, and after the demise of communism and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, we believed that China and Russia were heading towards stable democracy. They were not. We were completely wrong. Both countries moved towards a totalitarian and state-controlled form of predatory capitalism.
And after Stalin’s and Mao’s mass murders, Pol Pot’s and Ho Chi Minh’s crimes against humanity, and Ceausescu’s and Hoxha’s repressive regimes, one would think that historical memory was still sufficiently present in the West that Marxism and communism would find no foothold in ‘the land of the free and the home of the brave’. After all, it was not that long ago. But that is not the case. Marxism is alive and well in the USA. And it has increased its support.
So whilst China and Russia have moved towards a totalitarian form of capitalism – capitalism nonetheless – there are powerful forces within the Democratic Party in the US that are driving the country towards communism. Who would have thought it – certainly not many of us with a memory of having grown up during the Cold War?
What on earth is going on?
In the US, they call themselves ‘democratic socialists’. This is Bernie Sanders’ faction within the Democratic Party. For many years, they have been working to infiltrate the party organisation from within. Their ambition is to take over the party. And they have come a long way, as was evident in the recent mid-term elections.
They are sailing under a false and ostensibly ‘social-democratic’ flag. Their ideological framework is, in reality, a mixture of neo-Marxism, Trotskyism and postmodernist identity politics. They have the support of the left-leaning political establishment within the party, led by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and are, of course, heavily backed by the left-leaning liberal mainstream media. The ideological divisions within the party have converged on a single common goal: to bring down Donald Trump.
The non-Western Muslim immigrant groups, which have long since begun to make their political presence felt, have joined forces, along with the new Generation Z of younger voters who have not experienced the Cold War, and who have barely heard of Mao or Pol Pot, but who eagerly welcome the radical redistribution policies championed by the left wing of the party.
They do not wish to seize the means of production through revolution. They want a large public sector, with dominant state ownership, in order to expropriate income, property and assets through a radical tax, transfer and redistribution regime. Not so dissimilar to the Norwegian model championed by the Labour Party, but politically closer to Rødt, SV and MDG.
The political compass of the superpowers is thus being turned on its head. Russia and China have been moving in a capitalist direction, albeit in a totalitarian, state-controlled form. At the same time, it appears that the Democratic Party, which won the mid-term elections in the US, is moving in the opposite direction, towards communism. Who would have thought that just a few years ago?
That the US might be moving towards socialism is a possible scenario; there’s no need to wonder about that. It is at least as likely and as unexpected as Russia and China moving in a capitalist direction 3–4 decades ago. The political pendulum swings, and it can swing quickly.
The DSA’s 2026 manifesto
If you’re in any doubt, read the manifesto of The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). It was published this summer and is based on three pillars: ‘thriving working-class communities’, ‘working-class foreign policy’ and ‘working-class democracy’.
Under ‘vibrant working-class communities’, the DSA promises free housing for all, free healthcare, a 32-hour working week, free education, the nationalisation of the food, energy, transport and pharmaceutical industries, the abolition of the police and the prison system, free public transport and feminist policies.
In other words, everything is to be free. The money is to come from the state. They say nothing about who is to work and provide the state’s tax revenue, which the state is then to redistribute!
In the chapter on ‘working-class foreign policy’, they promise to abolish the armed forces, close overseas bases, end all trade sanctions, support Palestinian rights and impose an immediate arms embargo on Israel, as well as opening the borders to free immigration.
They say nothing about how this would destabilise global politics. Nor do they say anything about the consequences this would have with regard to expansionism from China and, potentially, from Russia. Nor do they mention what they intend to do about Iran’s nuclear weapons programme, or what opening the borders would lead to in terms of crime, women’s rights, Pride and other identity politics that are completely at odds with Islam and Sharia.
And as for ‘working-class democracy’, they want to abolish the Senate and replace the presidency with a leader elected directly by a ‘People’s Congress’ similar to the one some of us remember from Stalin’s Soviet Union and Mao’s China. That certainly was a lot of democracy there, wasn’t it!?
When the manifesto was published in August, some leading Democrats distanced themselves from it. Election experts predicted that it would drive voters away from the Democratic Party in the mid-term elections. That did not happen. The opposite happened. The US is now experiencing the greatest support for socialism since the turbulent 1920s. The only difference is that this time, the socialists are on the verge of securing control of the Democratic Party.
Changing voter demographics
Immigration and Generation Z have changed the voter demographics in the US. This works to the advantage of the far left. This is one of the trends we have seen emerge in the mid-term elections. Generation Z has no memory of communism’s cruel and failed history. At the same time, they are feeling the economic pressure first-hand from a labour market that has been partly outsourced to China and is now being exposed to AI, as well as from a strained economy characterised by sharp price rises and a difficult housing market.
They are, of course, particularly receptive to the prospect of everything being free: education, housing, healthcare, public transport and more. The same is true of the non-Western immigrant population. They do not come from the South to the North – to the US and Norway – because of the good climate. They are economic welfare migrants who come first and foremost to reap the benefits of our generous welfare systems.
This is where the shared economic interests lie between the traditional left, Generation Z and radical Islam. They are all opposed to Western capitalism and the status quo, and they are all in favour of the expropriation of property and income, redistribution and everything being free. And they are united in their hatred of Trump, as the foremost representative of the status quo. So be it, then, that the Left’s gender and identity politics clash so sharply with Islam and Sharia.
The DSA on the rise
The Socialist Party of America had 113,000 members at its peak in the 1920s. Fifteen years ago, the Democratic Socialists of America had just 6,000 members. Today, the DSA can boast 120,000 paying members and more than 220 local chapters across the US.
The DSA has pushed the Democratic Party to the left and is in the process of taking it over from within. The party’s centre appears to be completely paralysed. They dare not confront either the non-Western Muslim immigrant faction, Generation Z or the radical left. They have largely resorted to a purely mechanical anti-Trump agenda, the only thing that strikes a chord across the entire party.
At the same time, the Muslim faction is making its presence felt ever more strongly within the DSA. Michigan’s newly elected senator, Abdul El-Sayed, is already in the process of formalising the increased Muslim dominance within the party, and has established a political action committee (PAC) called ‘Habibi’, which in Arabic means ‘my beloved’!
The parallel with the 1979 revolution in Iran is striking. It is the same Trojan strategy: subversion from within. The DSA has worked tirelessly to reshape the Democratic Party from within and is well on the way to succeeding. Similarly, the rapidly growing faction of non-Western Muslim immigrants is working to reshape the DSA from within. This is in line with traditional Islamic doctrine. The coalition between the far left and Islam is on the rise across the West, and a history-blind Generation Z is in the process of giving them momentum. The parallel with what happened in Iran in the 1970s is frightening.
The Western-oriented Iranian democracy under the Shah was overthrown by a coalition of socialists and communists on the left (not unlike Bernie Sanders’ wing of the Democratic Party), together with the radical student movement that wanted change (not unlike Generation Z in today’s USA) and alongside the Muslim clergy led by Khomeini (with figures resembling Abdul El-Sayed, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Adam Hamawy in the US and the Muslim faction within the DSA).
Habibi, we all remember how that turned out, and what the Iranian people and the rest of the world have had to endure ever since! The Muslim clergy hijacked the revolution in Iran and sidelined the communists and the students. Make no mistake: they harbour the same ambition in the US. They have already become a force to be reckoned with within the Democratic Party.
