By Douglas V. Gibbs
CNN and the rest of the leftist media are not sure what to do. They championed Platner, until he finally stepped down, and then they turned on him fast. They claim they have a big tent, and they welcome Platner’s buddies from the Democratic Socialists who now infests the party, but they act like they are not radical. They are cautious and absolutely giddy at the same time. And some of them, on both sides of the Democratic Party’s quivering establishment, are calling this new wave of communists in their party the left’s version of the Tea Party.
Let me be crystal clear. This is one of the most ludicrous, historically ignorant, and deliberately misleading comparisons I have ever heard. It’s not just wrong; it’s a calculated lie designed to normalize the radicalization of one of our two major political parties.
The Tea Party, as you’ll recall, was a grassroots movement of patriotic Americans – taxpayers, small business owners, families – who saw their government abandoning its constitutional principles. We were about fiscal responsibility, limited government, and a return to the foundational principles that made this country great. We wanted the Republican Party to live up to its stated platform, not abandon it. We were trying to save the party from itself, to remind it of its conservative roots. We were builders, not destroyers.
What we’re seeing with these Democratic Socialists – let’s call them what they really are: communists – is the exact opposite. This isn’t a movement to improve the Democratic Party; it’s a hostile takeover designed to burn it to the ground. They don’t want to reform the party’s platform; they want to replace it with something entirely foreign to American values. They’re not trying to make the Democratic Party better; they’re trying to make it, and our entire country, worse.
The Tea Party revered the Constitution. These socialist communists despise it. The Tea Party wanted to shrink government; these radicals want to expand it into every aspect of your lives. The Tea Party celebrated American exceptionalism; these people apologize for it. The Tea Party wanted to unleash the power of the free market; these communists want to suffocate it with government control.
And the media knows this. That’s why they’re trying to draw this false parallel. I think they want to legitimize what is fundamentally an illegitimate movement that seeks to dismantle everything that has made America the greatest country in human history. They want you to believe that this is just “politics as usual,” just another ideological shift within a party.
But it’s not. This is a cancer. It’s an ideological poison that seeks to fundamentally transform, not improve, not reform, but transform this country into something our founding fathers wouldn’t even recognize, and never intended. It’s a movement rooted in resentment, envy, and a hatred for the very system that has produced more prosperity and liberty than any other in human history.
So no, CNN and the rest of the leftist media, this is not the Democratic Party’s version of the Tea Party. This is a modern American version of the Bolsheviks. This is the Democratic Party’s version of every radical movement that has risen throughout history with the promise of utopia but has delivered nothing but misery, oppression, and failure.
The Tea Party wanted to make America more like America. These socialist communists want to make America more like Venezuela, China, the Soviet Union, and every other communist failure that has poisoned the Earth. And that’s the difference. That’s the truth. Are we going to move closer to liberty, or farther away from it. In the end, that is what is at stake.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
