OPINION:
When I was a conservative student in the 1960s, I thought the war with communism was thousands of miles away in Southeast Asia and 90 miles off the coast in Cuba.
I was wrong.
The real war was here all along, in the strongholds of the New Left, especially in academia.
Now it has infected every aspect of American life and is on the verge of taking over what was once the party of Presidents Truman and Kennedy.
Precision of language is crucial. We are not fighting socialism. This is a war with communism. We had better wake up to that reality fast before we become the Russians, the Chinese or the Cubans of the 21st century.
The way to fight American communism is by exposing it and explaining it.
Talk about the platform of the Democratic Socialists of America, which just won a slew of congressional primaries in districts in New York and Colorado, where winning a Democratic primary is tantamount to election. DSA commies also are or soon will be the mayors of New York, the District of Columbia, Seattle and Los Angeles.
In January, a communist contingent will be heading to Congress, including Darializa Avila Chevalier, a 32-year-old professional student who won the Democratic nomination in a deep-blue New York district.
Ms. Chevalier wants to abolish police and prisons, “literally demolish the border,” seize rental property and nationalize corporations. In past social media posts, Ms. Chevalier called the works of Vladimir Lenin and Josef Stalin “essential must-reads.”
The DSA platform calls for replacing the Senate, president and Supreme Court with “an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress.” Illegal aliens will vote, further entrenching communist control.
Instead of a separation of powers, power will be concentrated in a single body.
This is a prescription for one-party rule. There were elections in the Soviet Union, and that is the type of sham voting we would have here.
We must expose what the DSA’s comrades have done in Cuba, Russia, North Korea and Red China.
At the time of the 1959 Castro revolution, Cuba was the most developed country in Latin America. Today, it has little fuel and is experiencing rolling blackouts. Garbage piles up in the streets. Cuban workers get half a pound of chicken and 10 to 12 eggs every two weeks. Workers of the world, eat hearty.
Havana says that although it would welcome aid, it will never compromise on communism.
Communism is by its very nature expansionist. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russian President Vladimir Putin has fought five wars, including those in Georgia, Chechnya and Ukraine. In the Russia-Ukraine war, both sides have sustained more than 2 million casualties over the course of 4½ years. Talk about forever wars.
Besides Mr. Putin’s attempts to re-create the Soviet empire, China is planning to seize Taiwan. North Korea is waiting for the chance to send its army — the fourth-largest in the world — marching south.
We also need to explain the symbiotic relationship between communism and Islamism — the red-green alliance. These ideologies are drawn together by a fanatical hatred of Western civilization. Ms. Chevalier is both a Marxist and a convert to Islam.
There is no communist country or party that does not support the so-called Palestinians. Iran’s nuclear reactors were built with the help of Russia and China.
Knowledge can stop a revolution. At least Americans cannot say that we were not warned.
When I was in Cuba in 1998, I met with Gustavo Arcos Bergnes, who fought with Fidel Castro’s guerrilla army. When Castro came to power, he was rewarded with the ambassadorship to Belgium. When he saw the betrayal of his homeland, Arcos became disillusioned, was recalled from his post and was eventually imprisoned for his dissent.
Did he not know that Castro was a communist before he came to power? I asked. “Of course not,” Arcos replied. “When we were with him in the Sierra Maestra, he wore a crucifix.”
The DSA leaders don’t feign religion. They are far more open about their goals than Castro was before he came to power.
When I interviewed Arcos, he was living in a one-room apartment with his parrot, Michael Jackson. “The bird is freer than me,” he lamented. That is what the DSA’s future commissars have in mind for us after the revolution.
During the Cold War, America stopped the spread of communism in Europe and Asia. If America fails, no one will be left to rescue us.
Fight communism now — fight with everything you’ve got — or buy a parrot.
Don Feder is a columnist with The Washington Times.
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