Even though I haven’t voted for a Democrat in this century (did many times before), I wasn’t one of those who called them communists. It seemed like overkill.

Naive, yes. Brainwashed, to a great degree (except for those who obviously profited from their power). But “commies”? Gimme a break.

And yet, watching the opening night of the Democratic National Convention, I had second thoughts. Who were these drones applauding the same empty swill they had for years almost none of which had anything resembling a positive result? Often, it was the reverse.

But did that matter? Not to them.

I am—to be clear—no particular fan of Republican rhetoric and propaganda, nor am I attracted to party line politics of any sort, but this convention seemed on the edge of an out-of-body “mass formation psychosis” experience à la Mattias Desmet, from both audience and speakers, that eerily approached the atmosphere of Leni Riefenstahl ’s documentary of the 1934 Nuremberg Rally (not exactly communist but close enough in its celebration of group think).

The times, they are indeed a’changin’ at an almost unfathomable clip—but am I exaggerating?

Maybe. But even the scheduling of speakers at the DNC is beginning to resemble the shuffling of faces on a politburo rostrum with Presidents Biden and Obama being rendered nonpersons by not speaking until nearly 11 p.m. Biden is almost literally their Brezhnev, to be propped up and then escorted from the scene..

But if we are to ask whether today’s Democrats are a communist party we must first define the term communist that has become rather different in our era, though no less ominous and, in my view, potentially more successful globally.

Communism today is far from what Karl Marx envisioned sitting on his ample derriere in the library of the British Museum, not that his concept of the future was particularly accurate then. He predicted his paradise of “scientific socialism” would appear first in a modern industrial state like Germany but, not that long after his death, it began in a considerably more primitive Russia.

Although the Soviet Union became a substantial military power, it fell apart economically and quickly became totalitarian largely due to its adherence to Marx’s economic theories. Command economies don’t work, a message apparently lost on Kamala Harris.

This mistake was no longer repeated by Communist China, once Deng Xiaoping—of a cat can be black or white as long as it catches mice fame— rose to power starting in 1976, ironically two hundred years after our revolution. Deng, responsible for the Tiananmen massacres, was as much a despot in his way as Mao Zedong, but did not adhere to Marxism with the über-religious fervor of Mao that allowed the Chairman to become history’s greatest mass murderer.

More Dengist, today’s China is somewhat different. The despotism remains, a good deal of marxist rhetoric is employed for show or to keep the masses from getting untoward ideas, but communism itself, even more ironically, has evolved into the most advanced, autocratic and perverse form of capitalism yet devised—”one party only” capitalism, you might call it, with the obvious benefits of the market available exclusively to party members.

Socialist economics might have its problems, but autocracy can really pay off.

Here is where it begins to align with today’s Democratic Party, which is not so distant, in essence, from the CCP, especially in aspiration. Sometimes I think, particularly among their leadership, they secretly envy the ChiComs for having evolved a perfect totalitarian system. This could account, along with the obvious personal profit that accrued in many quarters, for their favoritism to China (from Biden to Tim Walz, and a host others) that has also been shared, regrettably, by a somewhat smaller, though significant, percentage of Republicans.

China is, after all, the deepest of deep states.

Nevertheless, a caveat: Despite the growing similarity between the CCP and Democratic Party, it ill behooves conservatives and libertarians, including their standard bearer Mr. Trump, simply to call the opposition party “commies” and leave it at that. That only impresses “the choir.” Most Americans, our educational system being next to non-existent or propagandistic for the other side, understand little of what communism has become. If anything, they think of Stalin or Mao, who are long in their graves and supposedly a thing of the past. This renders the charge irrelevant with communist ideology cleansed and made suitable through the rubric “equity” that promises a mythological “equality of outcomes.” (Just how mythological I saw on trips to China and the Soviet Union. Party officials I met lived like lords, just as do party “elites” here. The disparity was even greater in the Soviet system.)

Few in the public have heard of Deng Xiaoping, even though he is arguably the most consequential political figure of the 20th Century. Few also know of his reforms and the system that wrought.

Trump and others should take the opportunity to explain this transition to America, not just hurl insults. This is difficult since the mainstream media, themselves profiting from this corrupt system, hide as much as possible from the public as well as from themselves, lest they lose the power that is precious to them.

But difficult, and actually painstaking, as this may be, those concerned with the preservation of our republic must suck it up and make the greatest effort to do this in a short time.

Therefore we must be mindful, and inform others, that during the DNC, and later in their propaganda, you will see words used in an Orwellian manner that are almost always their exact opposites. One of those is “freedom,” which, as Matt Taibbi has pointed out on his Substack, has been rebranded. Another is “democracy.”

One can only guess what a political party that has just anointed its presidential candidate in a matter of weeks without a single vote means by that word. In one sense Xi Jinping should be impressed—that’s how they do it, and imitation, as the saying goes, is the sincerest form of flattery—but more likely he and Vladimir Putin are licking their chops in anticipation of dealing with a US administration that is weaker than ever.

The intelligence report that the Chinese hacked into the Trump campaign is therefore not in the least surprising. Neither is the number of people—at this point very real and not just imagined — who wish to kill the Republican candidate. This is typical communist behavior as Mao is thought to have ordered the death of his competitor Lin Biao. We all know what Stalin did to Trotsky (and several other members of his politburo). Those are only the tips of an exceptionally bloody iceberg that floats through every communist state from Cuba to North Korea.

We are not there yet (except for a strange character in Butler, PA the media seems to have deep-sixed). But could we be? A better question is what country in history is exempt? France, that had its reign of terror, certainly wasn’t. Things don’t look so hot in Europe now—or on the streets of Chicago

As I mentioned, events are moving at an unfathomable clip. Anyone who wants Benjamin Franklin’s “a republic if you can keep it,” apocryphal or not, better keep their eyes open—and act accordingly.