Marxists Work to Reinforce ‘The Squad’ in 2020

Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) speak at a press conference at the U.S. Capitol on July 15, 2019. Holly Kellum/NTD

Commentary

Not content with Reps. Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , Ilhan Omar, and Ayanna Pressley—the far-left congresswomen collectively known as “The Squad”—the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and allied Marxist groups are targeting multiple congressional seats with far-left candidates in 2020.

No one is safe. The DSA and its pro-China allies, the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and Liberation Road (formerly Freedom Road Socialist Organization, or FRSO), are targeting dozens of seats currently held by Republicans, moderate Democrats, and even by insufficiently Marxist members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Most will not make it past the primaries, but some have at least a reasonable chance of being elected.

Here are four serious far-left contenders who could be reinforcing “The Squad” in January 2021.

Cori Bush

Cori Bush is targeting Missouri’s 1st Congressional District, which encompasses St. Louis, Florissant, and Ferguson. Her Democratic primary opponent is William Lacy Clay Jr., a veteran of both the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the Congressional Black Caucus, who has represented the district since 2001, succeeding his father William Lacy Clay Sr. In 2018, Bush stood against Clay Jr., losing by about 20 percentage points.

A native of St. Louis, Bush is a registered nurse, an ordained pastor, an activist, and a “community organizer.” She first came to prominence during the Ferguson anti-police protests of 2014, where she played a significant, if largely covert, role.

During a BlogTalkRadio show broadcast in August 2015, Bush was reporting “on the ground” as she described the scene days after “shots rang out” in Ferguson: “I’m right on the ground. I’m right here in the middle of it, so there’s chanting behind me. As a matter of fact, I was riding in a car ... circling the neighborhood with flags and with our masks on.”

Prominent in the activist community, Bush was a recipient of the 2015 “Woman of Courage” Award from the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation and the 2016 Delux Magazine “Power 100” Award, according to her website. She was named one of the ‘Top 50 Women of St. Louis” by Gazelle Magazine, and an “Unsung Human Rights Hero” by the St. Louis Coalition for Human Rights in 2017. She also received the 2018 “Community Activist” award from the Missouri Association of Black Ministers. In 2017, she was elected the first vice-chairperson of the Missouri Democratic Party Progressive Caucus.

District 1 is heavily Democratic, so if Bush can manage to beat Clay Jr., she will almost certainly win the seat.

Working in her favor is her close connection to two of Missouri’s most influential Marxist groups: St. Louis DSA and the local CPUSA. These groups can muster nearly 1,000 activists and have already elected many local officials, including several state representatives. Early this year, St. Louis Communist Party leader Tony Pecinovsky (supported by Bush and running as a Democrat) lost a race for St. Louis Board of Aldermen Ward 14 with a respectable 48 percent of the vote.

Bush is a regular at the local Communist Party HQ—the St. Louis Workers Educational Society. During her 2018 campaign, Bush celebrated her birthday at an event in St Louis. Guest speakers included DSA member Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

In July 2017, Bush joined a Sit-In to Save Health Care at Republican Sen. Roy Blunt’s office in Clayton, Missouri. Bush was joined by members of the St. Louis DSA, Socialist Alternative, and the St. Louis Workers’ Education Society.

Bush already has the endorsement of Justice Democrats—famous for selecting and electing Ocasio-Cortez in 2016.

Albert Lee

Albert Lee is targeting Oregon’s 3rd Congressional District, which encompasses all of deep blue Portland. The very safe Democrat district has been held since 1996 by Earl Blumenauer, a long-time member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Blumenauer beat his last Republican opponent 73 percent to 20 percent, so if Lee can win the primary, he’s almost guaranteed a seat in Congress.

Lee is currently the Dean for Business and Computing at the Sylvania Campus of Portland Community College.

He is active in TriMet’s Transit Equity Advisory Committee, the City of Portland’s Citizen Review Committee, the executive board of the Giving Tree NW, Health Care for All Oregon, the NAACP, Korean American Coalition of Oregon, and the Democratic Party of Oregon. He is a member of Portland DSA and the DSA front BerniePDX/Our Revolution, and on the board of directors of the far-left Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon—all groups with considerable electoral experience.

Currently, Lee is seeking Portland DSA’s endorsement. If he gets both local and national DSA endorsement, Lee will have an army of small donors and several hundred free doorknockers and phone-bankers on his team.

While the incumbent Blumenauer has ties to some DSA veterans, that may not do him much good. The DSA is likely to throw the old Jewish white “progressive” under the bus in favor of the young Korean/black socialist.

Lee is supporting Paige Kreisman in her run for Oregon Assembly District 42. Kreisman is a self-proclaimed Marxist-Leninist and member of both the DSA and CPUSA.

Lee is also supporting Doyle Canning, who is running for Congress in Oregon’s 4th District against Congressional Progressive Caucus co-founder Peter DeFazio. Canning has long been associated with FRSO/Liberation Road activists.

Mike Siegel

Mike Siegel is contesting Texas’s 10th Congressional District, which stretches from just north of Austin almost to Houston, against incumbent Republican Michael McCaul. In 2018, Siegel lost to McCaul by only four points in what is normally a safe Republican district, so the second time around, he may be even more of a threat.

Siegel is an assistant city attorney in Austin. He has worked as a public school teacher with Teach for America and co-founded two nonprofit education organizations.

Siegel’s far-left credentials are impeccable. He’s the son of Oakland, California-based activist/attorney Dan Siegel, once the West Coast leader of the Communist Workers Party, a group known for its blind loyalty to China and North Korea.

At Cornell University, Mike Siegel was president of the far-left National Lawyers Guild student chapter. He also served as an intern at the equally radical Center for Constitutional Rights, researching issues such as civil liability for military contractors. He also worked as legal coordinator for the “Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan” conference presented by the FRSO front group Iraq Veterans Against the War.

In 2018, Mike Siegel was heavily supported by several DSA-controlled groups including Our Revolution–Central Texas, Left Up to US, and Texas Alliance for Retired Americans. Austin DSA membership coordinator Jacob Aronowitz also served on Mike Siegel’s 2018 staff.

By July 2019, the Siegel campaign had garnered a number of key national and local endorsements, such as: far-left California congressman Ted Lieu; DSA front organization Progressive Democrats of America; International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; National Union of Healthcare Workers; and leftist Mike Floyd of the Pearland ISD school board.

Austin DSA and neighboring Williamson County DSA can muster over 1,000 members between them. Austin DSA is currently supporting one of its own comrades, Heidi Sloan, against Republican Roger Williams in District 25. However, they will almost certainly support Siegel as well if they think he has any chance of defeating McCaul.

Eva Putzova

Eva Putzova is contesting the Democratic primary in Arizona’s District 1, which encompasses all of the northern and eastern part of the state. Her opponent is incumbent “moderate” Democrat Tom O’Halleran, who in 2018 defeated his Republican opponent by about 8 points.

Putzova, a Slovakian immigrant, has been very active in public life in Flagstaff. She was elected to the Flagstaff City Council in November 2014 to a four-year term. She also served on the Board of Directors of Flagstaff Arts Council, the Audit Committee, the Economic Collaborative of Northern Arizona, and the Northern Arizona Intergovernmental Public Transportation Authority.

In 2016, she led a successful local citizen initiative, “raising Flagstaff’s minimum wage to $15 by 2021, implementing one fair wage by 2026, and establishing local labor standards enforcement,” according to her former councilmember bio.

Putzova was also a “board member of Friends of Flagstaff’s Future—a multi-issue organization that advocates for a socially and environmentally just Flagstaff.” She has also ”contributed to the goals of local commissions and committees, including the Regional Plan Citizen Advisory Committee, Coconino Community College Citizen Review Panel, Citizen Review Commission for Flagstaff Regional Five-Year and Long-Range Transit Plan, and the Greater Flagstaff Economic Council.”

Currently, Putzova works as the director of communications for Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, a far-left labor organization with ties to FRSO/Liberation Road.

For several years, Putzova has been active in the Flagstaff branch of Progressive Democrats of America, a national organization closely affiliated with the DSA. The national organization is supporting Putzova, one of their earliest endorsements of the 2020 election cycle. She is also close to Our Revolution—Flagstaff Progressives, which on a national scale is also heavily dominated by DSA members.

Putzova is also very close to Flagstaff DSA, which will likely support her in her upcoming battles with O’Halleran and any Republican challenger.

We Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet

While many U.S. voters have been shocked by the antics of “The Squad” and the Democrats’ increasingly obvious shift to the hard left—we ain’t seen nothing yet.

The Democrats have been edging left since the 1960s. The socialist shift accelerated dramatically under President Barack Obama and went into overdrive with the Bernie Sanders campaign of 2016.

Currently, the DSA, CPUSA, and FRSO/Liberation Road are contesting for ground in the Democratic Party at every level, from county commissions and education boards to the House of Representatives and even the U.S. Senate. It’s only a matter of time until they completely dominate a once-great political party.

Whether Bush, Lee, Siegel, and Putzova win or not in 2020 is largely immaterial. There are hundreds more like them standing in line, waiting for their shot.

The Trump administration and the Republican Party are right to campaign against socialism and communism in 2020. Only by waking up millions of U.S. voters to the imminent Marxist threat can we have any hope of saving this great republic.

Trevor Loudon is an author, filmmaker, and public speaker from New Zealand. For more than 30 years, he has researched radical left, Marxist, and terrorist movements and their covert influence on mainstream politics.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.