Posted by Ed Folsom, October 20, 2025.
The evil in dopey change unburdened by what has been.
(Symbol of Communist Party U.S.A.)
“No Kings” day indeed, except oversees where they have actual kings. In those places, it was “No Tyrants” day, so as not to offend the king. The kings themselves must not be tyrants, given that actual kings were excluded from the category of “tyrants,” of which the demonstrators demonstrated to have none. The effort must have worked here in the U.S., because we still don’t have any kings. In England, however, where they have an actual king, the actual tyrants are regularly arresting and imprisoning people for online speech that the tyrants dislike and therefore call “hate.”
But it wasn’t the tyrants who are imprisoning people for speech crimes that were protested in Saturday’s bout of performative street theater. Those tyrants are largely on the political left, and Saturday’s street theater was a left thing. It was as organic and grassroots as any other piece of plastic. It was, according to one source, funded to the tune of more than $294 million by the usual suspects: Arabella, Soros, and Soros’s Tides Foundation kicked in $197 million.
While we’re on the topic of leftist Democrats, here in Maine, U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner is experiencing a controversy no doubt ginned-up by the establishment wing of his party. This past week, Maine’s governor, Janet Mills, finally made her Senate candidacy official. The very next day, various media outlets, beginning with CNN, started trotting out politically embarrassing and now-deleted social media posts that Platner made a few years ago. The Maine Sunday Telegram, the Sunday outlet of the hegemonic Maine Trust for Local News, carried a front-page story touching on the controversy.
Of course, being on the same team as Platner, the Sunday Telegram euphemized his comments, reporting blandly that Platner “criticized police” in one of his posts. What did Platner say about police? Did he “criticize” them for any particular policy or tactic? Does he think the police write too many speeding tickets?
No. In a 2021 Reddit post, Platner wrote, “Bastards. Cops are bastards. All of them, in fact.”
This is very much in line with the “ACAB” or “All cops are bastards” slogan that all the cool kids were routinely slinging back when Platner made the remark. I know how common it was in 2020-2021, because I saw it with my own eyes, especially on Twitter. Saying all cops are bastards probably increases Platner’s popularity with the core of his fan base, the same people who cheered when Bernie Sanders endorsed him in August.
Not that I want to help the Democrat establishment beat on Platner, but in 2020 Platner also responded to a Reddit poster who wrote, “White people aren’t as racist or stupid as Trump thinks.” Platner’s reply? “Living in white rural America, I’m afraid to tell you they actually are.” This expression of moral and intellectual superiority reflects a personality complex integral to the worldview and self-image of the “progressive” set – for example, Hillary’s “deplorables,” Obama’s “bitter clingers.” Those rural white folks are in need of saving by the high priests and priestesses of the “progressive” church of what’s happening now, so they can be made to conform with history’s inevitable arc.
Within the congregation, utterances like Platner’s demonstrate belonging, boosting bonding and team-building. In a Democrat Party primary, such remarks stoke the candidate’s fan base. But, outside the lefty fold, dissing rural white people probably harms a candidate’s general-election chances with Maine’s Republican and independent voters. It’s better to keep the lefty-mainstream condescension under wraps outside the exclusive presence of the like-minded — can’t have the rural white rubes catch on before the election that the candidate despises them as much as he does.
What’s a candidate to do when such honest expressions of belief leak to the wrong places? Platner is taking a well-worn, 2-pronged approach: (1) That was then, this is now. I’m not the same person I was way back four or five years ago (Let’s move on); and (2) I was in a dark place at the time, but I triumphed over that stuff (I therefore now deserve your sympathy and admiration, not your scorn). Platner urges us to move forward with what Kamala Harris likes to call, “What can be, unburdened by what has been.”
During the same rough time frame, Platner also posted dismissive remarks regarding sexual assault claims. His sexual assault remarks are much more likely than his other remarks to harm him within the congregation. In fact, his campaign’s political director, Genevieve McDonald, resigned on Friday after the sexual assault remarks surfaced.
One thing that definitely won’t hurt Platner’s chances inside the congregation is his remark in a Reddit 2021 post, “I got older and became a communist.” As to that, Platner recently told ABC news, “I’m a small business owner and a Marine Corps Veteran. I’m the harbormaster… I’m not a communist.”
Lee Harvey Oswald was also a Marine. He moved to Soviet Russia and married a Soviet citizen before returning to America with her and assassinating President Kennedy. Jack Ma is a businessman and one of the wealthiest men in the People’s Republic of China. He’s also a member of the Chinese Communist Party – a communist. Is it only because Platner is a harbormaster that he can’t be a communist?
So while thousands of members of one of the two major U.S. political parties spill into the streets to denounce the twice-democratically-elected sitting U.S. president as a king whose election threatens democracy – taking a day off from referring to him as “Hitler,” “literally Hitler,” or “fascist” – their party runs candidates for office who declare themselves to be communist, or socialist, or who vow to stay focused on the Marxist goal of “seizing the means of production.” But it’s all good, because they’re a different kind of communist, or socialist, or Marxist, than all the ones who have gone before — they’re “antifascist.” What could possibly be wrong with an antifascist? What are you…a fascist?
I’m willing to believe that Platner is not registered as a member of the Communist Party U.S.A., and that he isn’t registered as a member of any chapter of the Communist Party anywhere. So, I think it’s probably true that he is not a communist, any more than a person not formally registered as a Democrat or a Republican can properly be called a Democrat or a Republican. But I’m far less willing to believe that he’s not a fellow traveler.
Why doesn’t the fact that Platner once claimed to be a communist automatically undo him? Imagine anyone who claims, “I got older and became a National Socialist,” having any chance to recover from that by claiming: “That was then, this is now. I was in a dark place when I said that (4 or 5 years ago), but I’ve triumphed over my demons, and here I am, a new man!” It would never happen.
As I discussed a couple of posts ago, socialism under Communist Party rule has led to more death and human misery, over a far greater part of the planet and for far longer, than National Socialism ever did. And yet, probably because the influence of socialism, Marxism, and the Communist Party have continued to be so widespread and pervasive for so long after National Socialism has been long-dead and buried, people can openly declare themselves to be socialists, Marxists, or communists, or declare their sympathies for any of those ideologies, without marking themselves forever as irredeemable monsters.
That people still feel so comfortable declaring these radical leftist leanings and still running for office reflects a deep societal sickness. It threatens to take us down the path to totalitarian hell that so many others have trod before. Here in the U.S., the website for the Communist Party U.S.A. (CPUSA) tells us (on the 4th slide of the slideshow at the top of their home page), “WE’VE NEVER STOPPED!” In fact they never did stop.
In 1945 and 1946, a majority of Germans thought National Socialism was a good idea that was just not carried-out properly. Eventually, that attitude was rooted-out, everywhere. Now, nobody, anywhere can express the belief that National Socialism is a good idea, poorly implemented, without being run out of all polite society. And yet, lots of people feel completely comfortable expressing the belief that socialism and communism are good ideas that just haven’t been done right yet, as if they aren’t inherently evil. In a world where the socialist states of China and North Korea still exist under communist rule, we shouldn’t need to have the totalitarianism crush us personally to finally grasp the inherent problem.
They keep telling you that socialism is good, benign, caring, wonderful. It doesn’t have anything to do with that bad stuff you’ve heard about communism in China, North Korea, or everywhere else that socialism has ever been instituted. In that vein, check out the following quote from the Communist Party U.S.A. regarding the relationship of the Communist Party and socialism, appearing in an article touting their involvement in the June, 2025, “No King’s Day” demonstrations:
“We believe that the American people can replace capitalism with a system that puts people before profit — socialism.”
Once again, the Communist Party tells you that the system it seeks to install is, as always, socialism.
And then, just so you know that the CPUSA are the good communists, and not the scary communists that those McCarthyite red-baiters have lied to you about for all these years, the CPUSA explains:
“We are rooted in our country’s revolutionary history and its struggles for democracy. We call for ‘Bill of Rights’ socialism, guaranteeing full individual freedoms.”
The communists want us to have Bill of Rights socialism that guarantees “full individual freedoms,” do they? Except for those who disagree. Those are “fascists” who must be eliminated – “Convert or die” is the essence of their attitude towards party-line deviationists. It’s a profound societal illness that allows anyone to view what these people seek as desirable.
