The California Democratic Party (CDP) is the target of heavy infiltration by the United States’ largest Marxist group, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
Working with the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and other socialist groups, the DSA looks likely to capture both the CDP chairmanship and a significant number of Central Committee seats at the upcoming state convention, to be held from May 31 to June 2 in San Francisco.
The DSA has exploded from around 6,000 members in 2016 to almost 60,000 dues-paying members today. A huge influx of new members—some already Democratic Party activists and officeholders—has empowered the DSA to infiltrate and often capture local Democratic Party branches in virtually every state.
California is now effectively a one-party state. Democrats hold every major statewide office in California and enjoy supermajorities in both the state Assembly and state Senate. The only real battle now is between the CDP’s center-left wing and hard-left wing, with the latter coalescing around the DSA.
That battle is being fought through the Assembly district election meetings (ADEMs). These are grassroots, internal elections held every two years in each of the state’s 80 Assembly districts, the most recent being in January 2019. Fewer than 40,000 registered Democrats vote in these elections, so an organized hard-left takeover is feasible.
The DSA now has around 25 local chapters in California and likely well over 5,000 members. The DSA controls or influences most of the “Our Revolution” branches in California, plus the Bay Area’s Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club, Wellstone Progressive Democrats of Sacramento, the Feel the Bern Democratic Club of Los Angeles, and the statewide California Democratic Party Progressive Caucus. The DSA also has close allies in the Service Employees International Union, National Nurses United, and other unions.
The DSA and a sprinkling of CPUSA and Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) allies now have the numbers to conquer the CDP from the grassroots up—and they’re doing it.
“The secret to success in these elections is to form ‘slates’ of candidates in all of the state’s 80 ADEM districts. Each district elects seven women and seven people who do not identify as women. If 14 progressives come together and agree to rally 50 friends each to vote for their slate, they can sweep the region. ...
“Overall in 2019, progressives identified and supported 975 candidates to try and fill the state’s 1,120 ADEM slots. Two-thirds of these candidates won, and progressives swept 23 of the state’s 80 districts.
“Progressives also took 42 of 80 possible executive board seats. ...
Socialist delegates also are looking to gain more influence on elected officials. Talks have started with the goal of creating a lobbying arm that would “establish a heavier influence on party members in the state Legislature.”
This process has been repeated all over California from San Diego to Shasta County, San Bernardino to San Luis Obispo.
Daraka Larimore-Hall
In the contest for the post of CDP chair, Kimberly Ellis, who narrowly lost to Bauman in 2017, is running against current party Vice Chair Daraka Larimore-Hall and four other candidates to date.Larimore-Hall is a long-time DSA comrade. In 1995, he was a co-chair of the DSA Youth Section, while a sophomore at the University of Chicago. Two years later he was elected to the DSA’s ruling body, the National Political Committee, at the November 1997 DSA National Convention in Columbus, Ohio.
In 1996, Larimore-Hall also represented the DSA in “socialist unity” talks with other Marxist groups, including Committees of Correspondence, Solidarity, and the FRSO.
Larimore-Hall also was active in the more than 100 parties-strong Socialist International, which the DSA was affiliated to until 2016—finally leaving because it was no longer radical enough.
In recent years, Larimore-Hall has been working his way through the ranks of the Santa Barbara Democratic Party and the state party. In my opinion, he will almost certainly soon chair the CDP.
If the DSA and its allies succeed in dominating the CDP, which has a near-monopoly in the state, the economic, political, and social consequences for California would be dire.
Worse, it would pose a major national security problem for the whole country as more socialists would be planted in the U.S. Congress and U.S. Senate, and thousands of Marxist radicals would be appointed to California state jobs.
California is already in near-open rebellion against the Trump administration. If the DSA and their Marxist allies gain a controlling influence in the CDP and, by extension, the fifth-largest economy in the world, we can reasonably expect disastrous consequences on all fronts.