For the love of America, please stop calling them progressives

OPINION:

An important Senate primary is taking place in Michigan, pitting two candidates for the Democrat Party nod against each other: Rep. Haley Stevens versus rival Abdul El-Sayed. And the headliners from various media outlets go like this: Stevens is backed by “party establishment,” while El-Sayed is “endorsed by progressive champions Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,” as Fox News wrote. Or this: “El-Sayed, who is running as a progressive candidate” — as the Detroit Free Press put it. Or this: El-Sayed in 2018 “ran for governor of a similarly progressive platform” as he’s doing now for the Senate, as Bloomberg wrote it.

Make it stop. 

Using the word “progressive” to describe what’s really socialist is a lie. And using the word progressive in place of the label socialist, while conveniently ignoring the fact that both are one and the same as communist, is a whitewash of truth.

El-Sayed, like Ocasio-Cortez, like Sanders, like many, many, many others operating under the label of “Democrat” as they work their politics through the Democrat Party — are socialists, which is to say Marxists and communists. They’re collectivists and stand in direct opposition to the limited government ideals of the Constitution. They want a capsizing of law and order, a destruction of American borders, an upset of the justice system, a clamp on capitalism, a redistribution of all wealth. Wake up and smell the tyranny. At the very least, quit covering for the tyrants. 

But America’s media have really enabled the far left to infiltrate and dominate the Democrat Party.

By failing to call out progressivism years ago as the socialism it truthfully is, members of the press have allowed Democrats to play a dangerous word game with the public. Remember this?

From the American Presidency Project webpage, a rundown of a January 2016 interview between MSNBC host Chris Matthews and Hillary Clinton:

Matthews: “You’re a Democrat. I would say you’re a pretty typical Democrat in the tradition of the Democratic Party. … What’s the difference between a socialist and a Democrat?”

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After a bit of back-and-forth, during which Matthews said, “Would you like somebody to call you a socialist? I wouldn’t like somebody calling me a socialist,” and after which Clinton answered, “Well, but I’m not one. I’m not one” — then came this from Clinton: “Well, I can tell you what I am. I am a progressive Democrat. I am a progressive Democrat …”

Matthews interrupted: “How is that different than a socialist?”

Clinton continued her thought: “… who likes to get things done and who believes that we’re better off in this country when we’re trying to solve problems together, getting people to work together.”

Yada meet yada.

That interview, interestingly enough, came on the heels of another interview Matthew conducted in which he asked the same question of then-Democratic National Committee chief Debbie Wasserman Schultz — and as Matthews told Clinton, Wasserman Schultz “wouldn’t answer the question, either.”

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Democrats have a long dance with the truth over their true agenda.

They want a socialist nation — which is to say a Marxist and communist nation.

They just don’t want to let on that they want this because they know it’s too soon for voters to accept that truth. From progressive to progressive-democrat to democratic socialist — to now, candidates who were openly endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America have rocked the political world with Democrat Party primary wins. It won’t be long before Dems shed the DSA label completely and toss in openly with the Marxists and communists.

One day, New York City’s Marxist-marching mayor, Zohran Mamdani, could be seen as the moderate voice of the Democrat Party.

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The media factors into this political shift when members of the press who should know better, who do know better, nonetheless refuse to do what’s best and call out the spade as spade. Politicians who claim to be progressive or democratic socialists or endorsed by the DSA ought to be pressed by the press to explain the difference between Democrat and whatever label of choice is instead being used. Politicians who fail to explain the difference — and take it to heart on this; they can’t explain the difference because the truth will get in the way of their explanation — ought to be referred to as socialists and communists and Marxists in the news.

Journalists are supposed to be in the business of reporting facts and truths.

Allowing leftist politicians to get by with hiding their anti-American ideologies under the cloak of a safe Democrat Party is a bias of the worst kind. It doesn’t just advance a lie. It advances a cover for a very destructive force that is rapidly seeping into the government and destroying America from within. For the love of God — for the love of America — let’s stop allowing the lies of the Democrats to go forth unchallenged.

• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “God-Given Or Bust: Defeating Marxism and Saving America With Biblical Truths,” is available by clicking HERE.

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