Commies are taking over the Democrat party! You might think that was a charge leveled by some rightwing reactionary who somehow confused socialism with communism. Instead it was the morbid fear expressed by longtime liberal Jonathan Chait in Wednesday's Atlantic magazine, "There’s Nothing Democratic About These Socialists." So panicked was Chait at the specter of communism taking over his beloved Democrat party that he did not just mention it in passing. In fact, the C-word was invoked eleven times in Chait's article in which he accuses the Democratic Socialists of America of being the parasitic pathway for injecting communism into its host party. 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. So how did that attempt to somehow keep communism out of a socialist party work out? Not well as could have been expected. The communist influx threw open the question of whether the DSA would support authoritarian parties and states around the world. Communist organizers, as Harrington feared, began to reshape the DSA as an ally of any anti-Western force, even the most murderous and oppressive. After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the DSA opposed the invasion but blamed it on “the expansion of NATO and the aggressive approach of Western nations,” and opposed any military aid to allow Ukraine to defend itself. Militant anti-Zionism became a wedge that the group’s more radical activists used to drive away critics of authoritarianism on the left. In 2025, the group’s convention voted to officially remove its founding language allowing for the expulsion of members who worked for communist cells, and added a provision calling the Palestinian “right to resistance” a central tenet of the DSA. Having dismantled the guardrails that Harrington built to exclude communists, the group established new guardrails to exclude anybody opposed to Israel’s destruction. “Michael Harrington’s DSA is dead,” a dispatch from the proceedings gloated. ...The DSA’s Red Star caucus was formed the year after the North Star caucus, in an apparent rebuke. It writes that nearly half of the members of the National Political Committee, the DSA’s highest leadership body, “openly identify as communists.” Almost half of the DSA's leadership are "openly" communist so that should make that leadership mostly communist when you factor in the secret communists. And now that party with its mostly communist leadership is in the process of taking over the Democrat party: ...During the New Deal era, Stalinist organizers pitched themselves as “liberals in a hurry.” The Progressive Party, which ran Henry Wallace for president in 1948, was secretly run by Communist Party loyalists, but it appealed to standard liberals by touting themes such as civil rights, economic justice, and an end to the Cold War. The DSA employs a similar formula, drawing voters in by denouncing oligarchy and genocide and promising to expand health insurance. Chevalier’s campaign, like those of other DSA candidates, has focused on affordability, fighting corporate greed, and similar progressive themes. When she was asked by MS NOW if she is a communist, she replied, “I’m not. I’m a democratic socialist,” and called questions about her adherence to totalitarian ideologies “a distraction.” ...The DSA’s long-term strategy is to exploit the Democratic Party’s ballot access and reservoir of voters to build its following, and then, after it gains enough power, break off to form its own party, after which the husk of the old Democratic Party would wither and die. This gambit is called the “dirty break,” a term coined by a 2017 article in the left-wing magazine Jacobin. A bit of faulty logic on the part of Chait here. Why would the commies who take over the Democrat party need to "break off to form its own party" if they already control the Democrats as we now see happening with little pushback from the current Democrat leaders? Finally, almost by TDS muscle memory force of habit, Chait makes sure to take the obligatory shot at Orange Man Bad by absurdly associating communists with MAGA: "Democrats are likely to face the same kind of pressure that Republicans confronted with MAGA’s hostile takeover: first to ignore their allies’ sinister goals, and then to rationalize and eventually justify them."

Brett T. at Twitchy chronicled how the tweeters mocked the liberals at Axios for warning: “GOP reboots the Red Scare as young Democrats embrace socialism.” They don't want to spend any time identifying the actual communist sympathies displayed by the Democratic Socialists of America candidates winning primaries.  The use of the term “Red Scare” always implied falsehood, that there were no actual communists to be exposed. Warning about the dangers of the Soviet Union was for kooks, and so was worry about communist spies in the United States (they were real). Today, you're supposed to ignore communists winning seats in Congress, as in CNN gumshoe Andrew Kaczynski's report that incoming congresswoman Darializa Avila Chevalier was tweeting communist content in 2020: Archived posts and retweets during this timeframe included a recommendation that Karl Marx’s Capital was an “essential must-read,” a complaint that public libraries did not carry enough Marxist literature by Lenin and other revolutionary writers, and a retweet from a Communist-identifying account lamenting that bookstore “banned books” displays did not include The Complete Works of J. V. Stalin. Graham Platner identified as a communist in a 2020 Reddit post, but he gets a syrupy cover story in Time magazine, must like Zohran Mamdani did. But who needs to present evidence? Axios implied communism's on the ash heap of history (so pay no attention to say, China or Cuba or North Korea): 70 years after the Red Scare and 35 years after the fall of the Soviet Union, President Trump and Republicans are trying to re-introduce a national fear of "godless communists" ahead of the critical midterms. Why it matters: A wave of resounding victories by Democratic Socialists has the GOP trotting out a message that last worked when most of those candidates weren't even born. It's too soon to know if the message is working — but Trump and Republican strategists see an opening with voters old enough to remember Soviet-era nuclear drills and spy dramas. So the right-wingers are still channeling Tom Clancy novels, those crazy kooks. Then came the "reality check"!  Reality check: Democratic socialism is not communism. New York's Zohran Mamdani and Washington, D.C., mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George both call for expanded government programs, Axios' Josephine Walker writes. "Any attempt to smear us as 'extremists' falls flat when so many Americans are struggling with the rising cost of housing, homelessness, unaffordable healthcare, and underfunded schools," a DSA spokesperson told Axios in a statement. Mamdani spoke of "seizing the means of production," which certainly sounds like Karl Marx copy. Axios presented DSA statements as "news" like helpful press aides.  PS: Axios also wants you to believe that establishment Democrats are "centrists," not liberals, with this piece: House Dem centrists plot Mamdani Caucus counterattack Moderate House Democrats are warning they're prepared for "war" if incoming progressives and democratic socialists try to hijack the House floor to secure ideological concessions.

While Americans were coming together to celebrate the country’s 250th birthday, warmly welcoming the many nations of the World Cup into our home, and cheering on America’s team from living rooms, bars, and stadiums across the country, the miserable crones of ABC’s The View were trying to divide and spread hatred. Here’s examples of how they hated on America in 2026. When America toppled Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro in a one-night raid, they couldn’t admit it was a good thing. Co-host Joy Behar clutched her pearls that America would have the nerve to take out a dictator and then whined about America’s military might and that it was directed at a smaller, weaker nation: Here’s what I don't understand. I may not be up on all of this stuff because I have a life. But, okay, Maduro is a bad guy. We took him out. So is Kim Jong-un, so is Putin, so is -- what's that other guy in Hungary? And we're going to go into all these countries and just kidnap the leaders?! (...) Its always somebody who is weaker than we are! It's always a country that we can overpower! It's not China. It's not Russia. It's not North Korea. Sorry Joy, but every country is weaker than we are. America’s unhealthcare system is unmatched.   Behar admits she doesn't actually follow the news and topics she has to talk about because "I have a life." Then falsely claims Maduro was "kidnap[ped]." pic.twitter.com/NOOFE6HOBp — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) January 6, 2026   Amid the war with Iran, not-so Sunny Hostin ridiculously parroted anti-American Soviet propaganda suggesting that the United States was the greatest nuclear threat in the world.  “I think we can also agree that this country is the only country that has ever used a nuclear weapon! This country! This country!” she shouted when guest co-host and CNBC anchor Sara Eisen stated the fact that the world would be better with Islamic regime of Iran in it. It also sounded similar to when she and moderator Whoopi Goldberg claimed last year that being black in America was worse than living in Iran.   The View's Sunny Hostin suggests America is worse and more of a threat to the world than Iran because the U.S. nuked Japan 80 years ago (if that's not her intent, then why even bring it up?): HAINES: Because we view, as Americans, our lives are different, they matter now.… pic.twitter.com/PB7yOjYyky — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) March 20, 2026   Their anti-Americanism really skyrocketed in June as the Fourth of July quickly approached. In two different episodes, Behar and Hostin insisted that Americans should be embarrassed of their country. According to Hostin, not only was America an embarrassment, it was also a “failed experiment”: HOSTIN: And at this point, I am embarrassed at our government. I'm embarrassed at our lack of healthcare. I'm embarrassed on the assault on the press. I'm embarrassed of our Congress. I'm embarrassed by the criminal felon president that is in the Oval Office that has a UFC cage on the White House lawn. (...) HOSTIN: I'm embarrassed about all those things. And I'm also embarrassed at how America is now seen across the globe. I don't think that many Americans understand that we are part of a wonderful global community. And when you look at our allies, our allies are now giving us a one-star rating as a country. While I am conflicted about this country because I feel that it is at this point a failed experiment, quite frankly.    Sunny Hostin, who once said she was more comfortable in Ghana than America, says she's "embarrassed" by the country as America nears 250 and calls it a "failed experiment" in self governance: SUNNY HOSTIN: And so I think we have a very complicated history here. I think it's a… pic.twitter.com/gILwK0E8y8 — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) June 5, 2026   As a counter to President Trump’s recent speech praising America on the National Mall ahead of America’s 250th birthday, Behar tapped a soundbite of comedian Larry David’s hatred of America because of the UFC event at the White House. And Behar agreed: DAVID: It was a travesty, yeah. What else can you say about it? It was embarrassing. I was embarrassed to be an American, yeah. [Cuts back to live] [Applause] BEHAR: So, I have -- I'm very good friends with Larry David, and so I'm not going to -- I think he's right in many ways. I mean, you listen to Trump. We have -- we used to have friends around the world. Now we don't have them anymore.   The View decries celebrating America's 250th birthday. Joy Behar agrees with Larry David that it's 'embarrassing' to be an American pic.twitter.com/PUAzTFUI6J — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) June 26, 2026   Behar went on to declare that “we should all be” "embarrassed" to be Americans. In another part of Hostin’s comments, she said she’s “discouraged by how this country is viewed by the rest of the world.” Well, given how the World Cup tourists have been embracing American culture and having a blast in the various cities across the country, you’re full of it, Sunny. And here’s my evidence:   This fills me with pride as an American. pic.twitter.com/7y2iLfgBml — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) July 2, 2026

The New York Times engaged in coverage of its own favorable poll for the Democratic candidate for a U.S. Senate race in Texas that was eyebrow-raising in its detail and intensity: “Times/Siena Poll Finds Talarico and Paxton Tied in Texas Senate Race.” The ins and outs of the numbers were lovingly detailed by Shane Goldmacher, national political correspondent, along with polling editor Ruth Igielnik and Camille Baker. The Democratic Party has a serious chance to win a Senate seat in Texas for the first time in a generation, as James Talarico, a Democratic state legislator, begins the summer locked in a tied race with Ken Paxton, the Republican state attorney general weighed down by past scandals, according to a New York Times/Siena poll. Frustrations over President Trump’s handling of the economy and concerns about Mr. Paxton’s character have put the Senate seat in play in one of the nation’s Republican strongholds. Mr. Paxton, 63, swept past indictment, impeachment and allegations of infidelity to thump an incumbent Republican senator who vastly outspent him in a primary this year. Now, as he faces Mr. Talarico, a 37-year-old who is training to be a minister, Mr. Paxton finds himself in a tight race that is marked by striking demographic divides. Overall, Mr. Talarico and Mr. Paxton each garnered 47 percent of the vote in the poll. There were several signs of weakness for Mr. Paxton in the poll. This story had several signs of the paper’s “weakness” in the knees for anyone challenging what the Times considers the dangerously extreme ultra-conservatives who run Texas (no Democrat has won a statewide race since 1994, though that never stopped the paper from pumping up various failed Democratic candidates). Some Times headlines from 2021 alone demonstrate the labeling bias: “Emboldened Republicans at the Helm, Texas Steers Hard Right” “For Texas Governor, Hard Right Turn Followed a Careful Rise” “Texas Lawmakers, After Shift To Right, Plan More of Same” “Can Texas Turn Further Right? Top 2 Republicans Say It Can” “Texas Governor Pushes State Further to the Right On Voting Rights and Race” As for Democratic hopes for overthrowing this right-wing establishment, Exhibit A was the apparently charming former congressman Beto O’Rourke, who lost to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in 2020 but retained the paper’s enthusiastic support and glowing coverage when he challenged (and again lost) the gubernatorial race to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in 2022. Back to the poll: Still, the poll shows the extent of the challenge ahead of Mr. Talarico. His enormous lead among independent voters — 27 percentage points — was only good enough to force the race into a virtual tie in heavily Republican Texas. While Mr. Talarico is ahead in Texas’s big urban centers, Mr. Paxton is crushing him two-to-one everywhere else. Melissa Daniels, 34, identifies as politically independent and is supporting Mr. Talarico. “I think he’s focusing on the common issues that the people have,” she said. “We want to feel safe. We want to be able to afford groceries, and, you know, those issues that we care about.” Ms. Daniels, an attorney living in Arlington, drew a contrast with Mr. Paxton’s priorities. “Paxton’s focused on, you know, I.V.F. and who’s using what bathroom,” she said. “Just stuff that isn’t really affecting day to day lives of Americans.” The sheer closeness of the race is an ominous sign for Republicans, who have not lost a statewide contest in Texas since the 1990s. Talarico’s nutty Biblical interpretations were briefly, gently sketched. Republicans have aggressively circulated clips of Mr. Talarico’s more left-wing commentary, including his provocative suggestions that “God is nonbinary” or that there are six biological sexes, and tagged him “TalaFreako.” But the surveys show the extremist frame has yet to take root with most voters. Still, more voters saw Mr. Paxton as “too extreme” (50 percent) than Mr. Talarico (43 percent).

If CBS News wants to be a news organization that represents all Americans, profiles such as one that closed Tuesday’s CBS Mornings with chief legal and national correspondent Jan Crawford being given nearly five minutes to air a profile of Christian music star Brandon Lake with unapologetic mentions of God and His Son, Jesus Christ. Featured co-host Vladimir Duthiers gave it top billing in two teases, informing viewers that “Brandon Lake is one of the biggest stars in faith-based music” and he’s “the mega popular artist who’s redefining Christian music.” Later, here was how Duthiers cued up Crawford’s piece following a soundbite from a performance of his new hit, The Author.  WATCH: Before the final day of Supreme Court opinions, Tuesday's 'CBS Mornings' ended with an incredible profile by the great @JanCBS Crawford of Christian music sensation @BrandonLake. God and Jesus proclaimed on national TV in a positive light -- something we need more of! pic.twitter.com/6Qr2E4HBHE — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 2, 2026 Notice how it was both straightforward and didn’t seek to sugarcoat or tear down Christianity: That is Brandon Lake’s song The Author from his new live concert album, King of Hearts in the Room. Lake is one of the biggest names in Christian music. The six-time Grammy winner has collaborated with artists like Jelly Roll and Lainey Wilson. Jan Crawford caught up with him on tour in San Antonio. She learned how a preacher’s kid is finding new fans. The piece started with Lake saying his career “isn’t just about entertainment,” but “an encounter” where “people’s lives are changed” and “walking out better than they came in.” Crawford finally came in, asking: “Would you say that music is, in a way, your ministry?” “I feel like music is what God has called me to, the gift that He’s given me, and that’s how I’m able to share this message and reach people,” Lake replied. With a clip of Lake singing another hit King of Hearts, Crawford said Lake’s “message of hope and redemption and praise...is helping redefine Christian music” through “more than four billion streams and sold-out arenas for shows he calls a joy bomb, bringing people of all ages and ethnicities closer to Jesus.” Lake praised his parents (including his father, a pastor) for having “made [singing] fun, and I think what church is supposed to really be about, and that’s community and sharing in everything that you have.” Following discussion of how Lake went as far as having last names tattooed on a thigh to fund his first record a decade ago, Crawford shared Lake was mentally struggling in his initial waves of success before realizing he “leaned on God, and his friends, and family” (click “expand”): CRAWFORD: The hits on Billboard’s Hot Christian Song Chart came quick, six number one songs. [LAKE SINGING GRAVES INTO GARDENS] CRAWFORD: But as his career was skyrocketing, Lake found himself mentally at the bottom. LAKE: When I didn’t have the next song write, invite, or I didn’t have the next song I was excited about, or the next show, I started to panic, but I was too prideful to tell my wife what I was experiencing. So, I was having some weird thoughts, dark thoughts, like this is not who I am, and I’m on the mountain top right now, my dreams are coming true, and it’s just crazy. I guess, I’d say a lot of people’s lowest moments come from a low moment, and mine came from a high moment. [LAKE SINGING HELP!] CRAWFORD: He says he leaned on God and friends and family, finding balance on his farm in South Carolina with his wife and three sons[.] Crawford added that “he saw how everyone struggles, and you can see that compassion in his music, and his community is continuing to grow” with many of his “high moments involve collaborations” with names such as Cody Johnson, Jelly Roll, and Lainey Wilson. Questioned why he’s expanded his music to include more duets, Lake aptly said that while “the songs are cool,” the real message is “God loves collabs” when His people come together. Johnson spared a moment to tell Crawford that, from his perspective, Lake’s career has “not only help[ed] shape people’s lives,” but collaborations with country music stars have “help[ed] him kind of segue into the country music realm.” Speaking of segues, this went into Crawford’s final question to Lake about what he would like his music to mean to non-Believers (click “expand”): CRAWFORD [TO LAKE]: There are people out there that they would never consider them religious or even believers. LAKE: Right. CRAWFORD: Like, what would you say your music offers them? LAKE: The best thing I can do is offer my story, what God has done in my life, and allow God to do the rest. Like I’m not out here trying to, like, you know, beat people with a Bible, and you know, fire and brimstone. Like, I don’t think that’s effective. I think my songs are offerings, and they’re open doors. [LAKE SINGING THAT’S WHO I PRAISE] Back live, Duthiers remarked he “love[d] the fact that you know he says that his music is an open door to everybody” and “being honest” while co-host Nate Burleson said it was “beautiful” in sharing “that everybody struggles.” Filling in as co-host, Inside Edition’s Eva Pilgrim concurred that he would be so “honest” that “at the height [of his career], he didn’t feel great.” Along with an increased focus on stories such as welfare fraud and having balance in segments such as one Duthiers had Thursday with Gen Zers, CBS now has more than a few examples to build a roadmap to an outlet that respects all Americans. To see the relevant CBS transcript from June 30, click here.