FRIDAY, JULY 3, 2026
Can we find a way out of this mess? Karoline Leavitt is back on the job at (what's left of) the White House.
Last evening, she was advancing the messaging which has taken shape since last Tuesday, when the mayor's three candidates won.
Assessed by standard cultural norms, the lady did look fabulous. On the other hand, as she started to speak, here's what the lady said:
LEAVITT (7/2/26): That was quite a monologue...This is not your granddaddy's Democrat [sic] Party. This is not the Democrat [sic] Party of JFK. This is a full-blown Communist revolution that is taking over Capitol Hill right here in D.C.
Let's be fair! In Red America's agitprop circles, it's been against the law to say the actual name of the Democratic Party for at least three decades. The childishness of that conduct is part of basic anthropology, but the refusal to say its name--the refusal to say its actual name--is not a MAGA invention.
That said, the claim that the Democrat Party is a coven of Commies is a piece of messaging which blew up last week when Mamdani's three candidates won.
As for Leavitt, she was guesting last evening on Jesse Watters Primetime. During the opening monologue to which she referred, the chyrons had assisted with the messaging in the ways you see here:
COMMIES DON'T MAKE GOOD LIFE CHOICES
COMMIES ARE WELCOME IN THE "BIG TENT"
COMMIE: THEY'RE AFRAID OF OUR POWER
TECH CEO: I WARNED YOU COMMIES WERE COMING
DEMS GO FULL COMMIE BEFORE MIDTERMS
As Watters delivered his monologue, large visuals behind him had offered additional thoughts:
COMMUNIST REVOLUTION
A CUP OF COMMUNISM
PERV WATCH
No explanation was offered for the PERV WATCH visual. We're guessing that it wasn't meant as a description of Watters himself, but this is the way Red Americans are being messaged in the wake of last Tuesday's primary wins.
This is no country for nuanced discussion! (Few things could be more clear.) As she continued to speak with Watters, Leavitt was soon saying this:
LEAVITT: The way that we stop this Communist revolution in its tracks is for great Americans across the country who love America, who are celebrating her and 250 years of our great nation this week, to vote against this Communist revolution, vote against the Democrats.
There's only one choice. It's President Trump, the Republican Party, and it's common sense. Communism versus common sense.
"That's a good way to frame it," the thoughtful Watters thoughtfully said. "If the Commies get in, they're going to blow things up."
So it went as the messaging agents pushed the message along. The emphasis is somewhat different this time, but a reversion to the days of Joe McCarthy can almost be discerned at such times.
That said, are any actual Communists getting nominated in Democratic Party primary elections this year? For example, is New York City Assemblywoman Claire Valdez a Communist?
Under the circumstances, you're asking a fairly obvious question! That said, consider what happened when Valdez spoke with CNN's Erin Burnett, one day after she was nominated by New York City voters for a seat in the House:
As we noted yesterday, Burnett mentioned the fact that President Trump was already messaging Communist. But wouldn't you know it? Burnett failed to ask the obvious question:
Are you now, or have you ever been, a Communist or something like that?
Burnett didn't ask, and Valdez didn't say. For the full transcript, click here.
That said, even as the interview started, producers posted a list of stances Assemblywoman Valdez was said to support. Six proposals appeared on the screen. This is what viewers saw:
CLAIRE VALDEZ POLICY PROPOSALS
Universal rent control nationwide
"Medicare for All"
Shrink private sector, grow public sector
Abolish ICE
End all arms sales to Israel
Support Palestinian statehood
Has Valdez actually made those proposals? In part because we watched this interview, we can't tell you for sure.
For the record, three or four of those proposals tend to have majority support in nationwide polling. For starters, we refer to Medicare for All, to the abolition or replacement of ICE, and to support for Palestinian statehood.
Ending all arms sales to Israel? This recent Economist/YouGov poll found that only 24% of all respondents supported that position. (An additional 17% favored reducing such sales, with 21% of respondents saying they weren't sure.)
That said, ending all arms sales to Israel was favored by 35% of Democrats, and by 47% of liberals. It was the most prevalent of four possible positions among each of those groups. Especially among liberal respondents, it was the dominant stance.
Is Assemblywoman Valdez simply the equivalent of a liberal / progressive Democrat? Or is she somehow different? Given the current state of our public discourse, there's little chance that you will ever see anyone try to examine that question.
On the other hand, the cries of Commie started quickly and they continue to come. They came from the giant platform of the sitting president, and from the most powerful organ, by far, in the realm of round-the-clock "cable news."
That said, we advise you of this:
Reversions are widely present within our agonized nation. Cries of Commie Communist Commie strike us as a groaning reversion by the right, but human imperfection being what it is, there's no way to stop reversions from taking place wherever we humans may gather.
In a new essay for The Atlantic, Jonathan Chait offers what may seem like a peculiar thought:
Even today, Communists do exist within tour nation's population! Even today, there may be people who are drawn to such ideas, or at least so Chait says.
That may seem like a surprising claim. Chait's essay appears beneath this double headline:
IDEAS
There’s Nothing Democratic About These Socialists
The DSA was formed in opposition to the very thing it has become.
With the weekend drawing on, we don't have time to walk you through Chait's extensive history of Democratic Socialists of America--the DSA.
His history takes us back to the Michael Harrington era. We'll give you this small taste:
A tragic irony of history is that the Democratic Socialists of America was formed in opposition to the very thing it has become.
The writer and activist Michael Harrington helped found the DSA in 1982. His goal was to build a socialist movement that would eventually pull the Democratic Party toward more humane domestic and foreign policies. He believed that a commitment to freedom of speech, elections, and other democratic norms was an absolute requirement for any socialist organization. And generations of bitter experience taught Harrington and his allies that socialist organizations had failed because they allowed communists to infiltrate them and take control of their organizing structures. Its founding bylaws accordingly permitted the expulsion of members who were “under the discipline of any self-defined democratic-centralist organization,” a slightly jargonish way of describing communists.
A decade ago, the excitement generated by the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign on the left and the frightening rise of Donald Trump spurred an influx of tens of thousands of young members. Some of the new recruits were Marxist-Leninist organizers who saw the DSA’s growing membership as fertile ground.
And so on from there.
Chait sees the DSA as a source of trouble. We offer a personal note:
Some of (the parents of) our best friends have been Communists! That was true of the parents of a best friend in high school, but also of the parents of a close friend during our early years in Baltimore.
There's a (cherished) third example we could cite, but we aren't going to do so. However, also this:
In the street fighting days of the late 1960s. some of our best friends in college were drawn to the Communist-adjacent ideas of groups like SDS and the PLP. Other people were strongly drawn that way.
The ideas of those groups didn't make much sense to us--but they did to them, and our friends were very good people.
Full disclosure:
There are no ideas on the face of the earth which won't appeal to some people. Some people may even favor abolishing borders and abolishing police! (Burnett didn't ask about that.)
Chait is afraid of the DSA. We can't swear that he's wrong.
We can say that the cry of Commies Commies Communists is going to roll down like the waters of that famous mighty stream. The most challenging of the mayor's three nominees has already triggered a tsunami of negative messaging from the warrens of MAGA agitprop, and it isn't going to stop.
Beyond that, exercised Democratic voters may proceed to nominate candidates in certain districts and certain states who won't be able to win. (Or not!) Republican voters have taken that fall in the recent past. We Dems could do that too.
Will Democrats win November's elections? Evrything is possible, of course, but some things don't come to pass.
We don't know who's going to win. Nor are we sure that our struggling, routinely gonzo nation can find a way out of this mess.
"REVERSIONS: Will the Democrats win either House this fall?"
ReplyDeleteTechnically, the two parts of Congress are called houses, but they are also separately named the House of Representatives and the Senate. It might be better to call them chambers, since there is only one House of Representatives, not two.
Reversion is going back to a prior state. We on the left want progress, not the conservative return to some mythical past. The reoccurrence of some past event is not really what is meant by reversion.
DeleteWhy does Somerby feel the need to grab these bizarre words that don't apply to anything he talks about? It just confuses people, especially those who already know what the words mean.
Let’s revert to Stalinism.
DeleteLike all those right wingers who moved to Russia at Putin's invitation?
DeleteThose right wing "patriots" who claimed Putin and Orban would be better than Biden. Trump was no accident -- these people have shit for brains.
DeleteIronic that Communists have always been called Red or reds, but now it is the MAGA Republicans who are Red America. And it doesn't seem to bother them much. When DOGE takes over the govt in order to create a giant database for purposes of controlling the populace, isn't that kind of commie? It is more red than anything any of the Democratic Socialists have been proposing. Who are the real reds. Somerby might well ask, but he won't.
ReplyDelete"This is no country for nuanced discussion!"
ReplyDeleteSomerby is incapable of nuanced discussion himself. He has thrown a dishcloth over his head and is running around squawking "the sky is falling, the sky is falling!" because the right wing is doing what it always does -- villainizing the left. How is being called a commie any worse than being called a pedo, or too old to govern, or a monster or psychopath, or satanist? We get called a lot of stuff. Being called a commie is one of the more innocuous things, as Somerby might recognize if he could calm his own hysteria to the point of rationality. Chyrons on the right are telling red America what they have already been told for generations. How awful is that?
Agree. Republicans are shooting themselves in the foot with this “commie” strategy, more power to them.
DeleteSomerby saying “ew” “ick” when it comes to communism (something he does not understand) is hardly surprising given Somerby’s right wing bent.
""That's a good way to frame it," the thoughtful Watters thoughtfully said. "If the Commies get in, they're going to blow things up."
ReplyDeletePresumably Somerby is being sarcastic or ironic when he calls Watters "thoughtful" but is there any possibility that a careless reader will associate the word with Watters and take that as praise? Is it really necessary to call Watters thoughtful instead of calling him what he really is, a shameless propagandizing lying liar who cannot be trusted no matter what he says? MAGAs praise themselves enough, without Somerby doing it too, even speciously.
Children don't process sarcasm. Their brains haven't developed the capacity to monitor two information streams at once, which is needed to see that there are two meanings in a sarcastic statement, the surface one, and the contradictory invalidation of surface via tone or facial expression or context. There are also people who haven't developed advanced thinking skills. They don't get symbolism and cannot process metaphors. They are very literal. Some are on the autism spectrum. Some just make assumptions inappropriate to Somerby's meanings. But in any case, Somerby is communicating inefficiently and introducing confusion into his intended message.
Should someone do that when talking to diverse audiences that include both supporters of Trump and detractors? It just makes it hard to know which group Somerby is part of. That may be his intent, but the indirectness interferes with effective communication, unless his goal is to be unclear.
This is a simple example that few people will guess wrong about, but why should Somerby be making readers guess at all? And many of his statements are murky, fuzzy, unclear as to intent, ambiguous, capable of competing interpretations. This is dishonest on Somerby part, since he states beliefs that he clearly does not hold, where his actions conflict with his claims. Such as saying he voted for Harris after criticizing her mercilessly (and lying about her positions) and never urging readers to support her.
I cannot believe that someone this indirect was ever allowed to teach those young children, for whom sarcasm would go "whoosh" over their heads and misuse of words would add nothing to their acquisition of vocabulary. It would be tempting to ascribe this to dementia, given Somerby's age, but he has always done this kind of thing here.
"Presumably Somerby is being sarcastic or ironic when he calls Watters 'thoughtful' but is there any possibility that a careless reader will associate the word with Watters and take that as praise?"
DeleteIf even you were able to pick up Somerby's sarcasm then I wouldn't worry too much about the rest of us.
There are no autistic people in the world, amirite? No people with frontal lobe problems due to dementia or brain injury. No undereducated people never trained to look for double meanings or symbolism in literature. No people who get taken in by scams and cons. But Dogface is just busy insulting someone he disagrees with, and not bothering to think about what was said at all.
DeleteAnother problem with sarcasm is, how much of what Somerby writes is sarcastic? How do you tell for sure in a written blog?
DeleteExactly!
DeleteWhy would a supposed liberal be casting shade on whether Democrats will win a majority in the House when a blue tsunami is being predicted, seats have flipped blue in special elections, polls lean blue, Democrats are overperforming compared to 2020? Somerby’s doomsaying isn’t cute or witty. It is ugly and likely paid by red dark money.
ReplyDeleteYes, perhaps he's being paid by some conservative billionaire to discourage liberals. I'm sure that's a soothing explanation for you, since you won't have to consider what he says because you've decided that he's operating in bad faith.
DeleteWhy? Because Somerby is right wing.
DeleteSomerby is wrong wing.
DeleteIt should be obvious from the various criticisms here daily that Somerby has nothing to say to liberals, DG. And yes, he is often operating in bad faith. Others here provide evidence. You just attack other comments, without addressing anyone's arguments.
Delete"Others here provide evidence."
DeleteNobody has ever presented a shred of evidence to prove that Somerby is paid by "red dark money." There has been nothing presented whatsoever except bizarre speculations about his motives. (And I suspect I'll get inundated with some more.)
It is evidence that Somerby changed his tune in 2015, when Trump came down that escalator. Others in the blogosphere noted it and wrote about it at the time. Going back and reviewing Somerby's own words shows that shift. It is evidence that other stand up comedians were paid to become right wing influencers at that same time.
Delete"Federal prosecutors revealed that several prominent American online commentators and political pundits were paid by Russia, though they were primarily contracted as political influencers and podcasters rather than traditional comedians. The influencers maintain they were unaware of the true source of the money.The Department of Justice indicted two employees of the Russian state media network RT for funneling nearly $10 million to a Tennessee-based company called Tenet Media. This money was subsequently used to pay the following online personalities to produce English-language videos:Tim PoolDave RubinBenny JohnsonLauren SouthernMatt ChristiansenTayler HansenAccording to the NPR coverage of the indictment, the commentators were not individually charged, and federal authorities stated that they were victims who had been deceived about the fraudulent funding. You can read more about how this network was operated in the detailed PBS News report."
I presented this evidence at the time the charges against Tenet Media emerged. I have also documented the specific right wing memes and talking points expressed by Somerby, in real time as they have occurred, explaining why they are right wing.
DG only attacks other commenters. He does not deal with anything substantive, because he is just a troll. It is also evidence that Somerby, a supposedly liberal blogger, has his own cadre of right wing trolls to defend him. What other left wing blogger has that?
And there you have it: Some rando anon sensed a “change of tone” in 2015. And that’s what you folks consider “evidence” of Somerby’s corruption.
DeleteAs I remember, 2015, Hector went back and checked Somerby’s 2015 posts and couldn’t replicate your finding of any “change of tone.” Did that shake your confidence in your “evidence” at all?
DeleteNo, other political bloggers saw a change, as I did. I will take Digby’s word over Hector’s.
DeleteBTW, I went back and sampled several 2015 posts and I did not notice any change of tone at all.
DeleteOh, well that settles it then. Fuck off.
DeleteThat’s the quality of “evidence” that you usually cite.
DeleteBy the way, if you can cite where Digby says Somerby is a fifth columnist paid by some conservative billionaire, then I’ll happily take notice of your pathetic rants.
DeleteIf Somerby keeps this up, I will join my local Democratic Socialist chapter in protest.
ReplyDeleteChait is a centrist. Who cares what he is afraid of?
ReplyDeleteI remember the blue tsunami where fearful pseudo lefties said Obama would lose because he is black. Did he? I forget.
ReplyDeleteThe 2008 was run 1) after the same party held the presidency 2 terms in a row, which is a bonus for the out of power party's candidate; and 2) after the GOP ran the economy into the ground. Literally any candidate the Democrats ran was going to win. That Obama only got 53% of the vote was disappointing -- and a harbinger of the off-the-rails country we have become.
DeleteThe important thing to remember is both parties and the media successfully sabotaged Hillary as they would repeat in 2016
Delete@4:17 The argument was that any male candidate run would win except a black man. There was fear that Democrats would be throwing their opportunity away on a candidate with no chance to win. Just as it was argued that Hillary should not be nominated because no woman could win the presidency. It is unsurprising that a black man would be elected whereas a woman would not be, given that women did not get the vote until long after black men did. A woman was not appointed to the supreme court until after a black man had been. The feminist movement came after the racial civil rights movement.
DeleteHillary had more delegates for the 2008 that were not counted because the Democratic Party wanted Obama and not her on the ticket. It is why the Pumas were formed (Party Unity My Ass), because of the pressure put on Hillary by the Party to step aside for Obama. I believe she would have been a better president because Obama was handcuffed by the need to be bipartisan, assuage angry white Southerners, never appear angry and avoid all mention of race, lest he be accused of favoritism based on skin color. The right, of course, interpreted that as weakness while the left was frustrated by his appeasement of assholes. Hillary would have needed to demonstrate strength (due to stereotypes about women that differ from those about black people) and thus could have been more oppositional toward the right. Bernie and Warren opposed Hillary, who they lied was a corporatist, despite her desire to implement single payer health care for all. It wasn't just the media sabotaging Hillary. They will, of course, deny their role in putting Trump into the White House.
Trump, the right wing and the media created the rift among Democrats over Israel. This didn't start over the Hamas attack but goes back years. Meanwhile, the Palestinian movement has been working on college campuses to propagandize students for decades. There were there in force in 2002 when I started my career as a professor. They were active on every campus where I studied or taught before that. Using that issue to divide Democrats is part of right wing strategy as much as using civil rights activism to divide the left.
We need to recognize this explicitly and deliberately work toward unity if we are going to get rid of Trump and the fascist right. It might be that attacking corruption and Epstein pedos will unite factions on the left with centrists.
The number of people who made that argument and stuck to it was tiny. And the Obamaites claimed the "establishment" favored Hillary -- which was actually a somewhat reasonable argument, until it became obvious Obama was going to win, at which point they flipped.
Delete5:27, good summary
DeleteYeah . Ted Kennedy and John Lewis. A couple of pure Democratic renegade politicians
DeleteThe Democratic Party will no doubt stumble on regardless of the outcome of the coming election. It will continue to present itself as the Party of the powerless while gustily promoting the interests of the powerful, as they have done for 40 years now.
DeleteDemocrats are responsible for most of the positive changes in our society. How is that possible without the power of the people in our party?
DeleteWhat positive changes are you talking about?
DeleteAvila Chevalier didn’t trigger any wave. All three were endorsed by Mamdani. That triggered the right. All three are being called commie regardless of their differences. Anyone running will be called commie because that is the talking point. We can’t let that direct blue actions.
ReplyDeletePeter Thiel says Pope Leo, calling for regulation of AI, is serving Communist China.
ReplyDeleteThese fascists have learned well from Trump. They can lie with impunity. Even about the Catholic’s Pope. Good thing the Pope isn’t Jewish or Thiel would be labeled an anti semite
Delete“ Are you now, or have you ever been, a Communist or something like that? “
ReplyDeleteDidn’t someone ask that back in the 1950’s? Why would Somerby want that question asked now?
“ Chait is afraid of the DSA. We can't swear that he's wrong.”
ReplyDeleteEither you agree or disagree with Chait. (It sounds like Somerby agrees). I think voters are tired of pundits and consultants telling them who they should vote for. It wouid be wise, in my opinion, for the Democratic Party to find a way of working with these candidates, rather than giving fuel to republicans who want to make them “the face of the Democratic Party.” Carville abets them by demanding the democrats not seat Chevalier.
The Democratic Party cannot effectively rebuild unless it openly acknowledges the political consequences of its Israel policy.
ReplyDelete“In 1956, I shall not go to the polls. I have not registered. I believe that democracy has so far disappeared in the United States that no ‘two evils’ exist. There is but one evil party with two names, and it will be elected despite all I can do or say. There is no third party. On the Presidential ballot in a few states (seventeen in 1952), a ‘Socialist’ Party will appear. Few will hear its appeal because it will have almost no opportunity to take part in the campaign and explain its platform. If a voter organizes or advocates a real third-party movement, he may be accused of seeking to overthrow this government by ‘force and violence.’ Anything he advocates by way of significant reform will be called ‘Communist’ …”
ReplyDelete— Dr. W.E.B. DuBois
Leroy
But who was more evil, Eisenhower or Stevenson?
DeleteDepends on who you ask.
DeleteAI says: "Adlai Stevenson II (the prominent 1950s Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Ambassador) was a progressive voice on civil rights, though he is historically viewed as a political "gradualist." He supported federal protections and civil rights advancements but had to carefully balance his platforms to avoid alienating the segregationist wing of the Democratic party in the American South."
Black people are torn by differences about the pace of progress and the degree of activism to pursue in the civil rights movement. MLK was called too slow. Some black activists urged violence, especially after Black Panthers were shot in Chicago and incarcerated in Oakland. The SDS and Weathermen were divided over gradualism. Riots in Los Angeles were about lack of progress for blacks, poverty and over-policing in South Central LA. If the mainstream left had not gotten behind civil rights, the pace of change would have been slower and more violent.
DeleteBTW, stole that from here:
ReplyDeletehttps://consortiumnews.com/2026/07/03/democrats-versus-their-voters/
Leroy
And what's your point about it?
DeleteDuBois was ahead of his time.
DeleteDuBois was a college professor who wrote instead of marching. He inspired Malcolm X among other black leaders who were previously unaware of the details of their own history. His inability to find a place for black issues in the 1920s was solved by the late 1940s and 1950s when the civil rights movement became part of the left's political agenda, with planks in the Democratic Party platform. Most who joined the Communist Party in the 1920s and 1930s abandoned it with the Hitler-Stalin pact in 1939 and afterwards. So when McCarthy started his witch hunt, he was mostly persecuting people who had been Communists earlier but had left the party by the time of the hearings. That didn't save them.
DeleteFinally, someone links to an article that isn't propaganda or written by a partisan retard.
DeleteAccording to bias checking sites, Consortium News is rated as strongly left with low reliability (variable because some articles have info that is unsubstantiated).
DeleteIs it worse to be a “demon in human form” or a communist?
ReplyDeleteI was going to mention that compagno said that about Talarico. I think mainstream journalists need to ask Talarico if he is a demon in human form, simple as that.
DeleteThe Trump administration is refusing to release additional records from the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, or explain why it's keeping them secret, even after a federal judge ordered the Justice Department to do one or the other.
ReplyDeleteJust hours before a court-ordered deadline, the Justice Department asked U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan to throw out the order and just accept the department's motives for withholding the records.
********
When asked why, Blanch said because fuck you, what are you going to do about it.
Keep in mind when the fucking media says the fucking DOJ, the fucking media actually means trump’s fucking lawyer.
Reversion to what? We have never been a communist country. Not even in McCarthy's fever dreams.
ReplyDelete