The US Democratic Party Imitates the CCP in Several Areas

The U.S. Capitol in Washington on Aug. 6, 2022. Anna Rose Layden/Getty Images

Commentary

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the U.S. Democratic Party are big on unified messaging (also known as propaganda), lockstep voting, and democracy according to their own specific definitions. The parallels are eerie.

Let us examine them.

Unified Messaging

In communist China, the short-term and long-term narratives of CCP leader Xi Jinping and his henchmen are amplified daily by state-run media, CCP bureaucrats, and wolf warrior diplomats. Communist euphemisms such as “community with a shared future,” “common prosperity,” “core interests,” and “indivisibility of security” are endlessly repeated to browbeat Chinese citizens and psychologically condition them to accept CCP diktats without resistance. Perhaps the most laughable euphemism is the communists’ claim that their one-party system is a “whole process people’s democracy.”

All of these malleable phrases are Orwellian and arbitrarily defined by the communists to shape public opinion to achieve political and especially psychological objectives in accordance with Mao Zedong’s “Three Warfares“ strategy. Relentless and consistent messaging is one of the propagandist’s most effective tools used to influence people—and the CCP are masters at it.

In the United States, the Democratic Party has a similar unified messaging strategy, especially when there is a Democrat in the Oval Office. This is no surprise because many progressive Democrats have been schooled in Maoist thought during their college years.

For example, Anita Dunn, a senior adviser to President Joe Biden, once referred to Mao as “one of her favorite political philosophers,” as noted here. Apparently, others in the White House view Mao favorably, too, as radical Maoist activist Yuri Kochiyama, who praised Osama Bin Laden after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, was honored by the White House back in March during Women’s History Month, as noted here.

Thus, Democrats have adopted Mao’s Three Warfares for their own use, especially the elements of media warfare (influencing public opinion) and legal warfare (providing the legal context for Democrat efforts to change the U.S. constitutional Republic that they call “lawfare”).

The Democrats’ daily narrative and associated talking points are routinely dispensed by the White House and Democrat congressional leaders, including via the White House press secretary’s daily briefings, and echoed by sympathetic (if not sycophantic) media that often use the identical phrases and words in those talking points, as explained here.

The Democrat-media complex doesn’t use incarceration, reeducation, or other harsh methods to keep its cadre in line like the CCP. But there are plenty of carrots and sticks applied to their media accomplices behind the scenes to ensure conformity to Democrat narratives, for example, intimidating phone calls, promises of future interviews (and off-the-record meetings), invitations to insider meetings (and here), etc.

A projection display of the DNC passage of the Inflation Reduction Act is displayed in front of the White House in Washington on Aug. 12, 2022. Jemal Countess/Getty Images for DNC

Lockstep Voting

The CCP captures the annual trophy for “most lockstep votes cast,” as the various “votes” taken by the Politburo and National People’s Congress (China’s rubber-stamp legislature) are virtually by acclamation with minimal, if any, dissenting votes cast. All of these people are lifelong communists who believe that the CCP is the rightful ruling class in China.

CCP members are the “first among equals” at all levels of the Chinese government, including national, provincial, prefecture, and county, all the way down to towns and villages. The so-called “party secretaries” outrank the government officials at every level of government, as noted here. The only candidates for political office are CCP-approved, whether members of the CCP or from tiny political parties thoroughly penetrated and controlled by the CCP. Political dissent is illegal in communist China and dealt with harshly by the state’s internal security apparatus. Whatever the CCP wishes to implement in the way of policy is thus approved without any real resistance from Chinese citizens.

The Democratic Party can only look upon the CCP with admiration regarding unified voting. However, Democrats in Congress lately have done a good job in voting as a bloc without defections on key legislation under the Biden administration. One of the most recent examples was the passage of the misnamed “Inflation Reduction Act” on a party-line vote. Senate confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court of Ketanji Brown Jackson and Democrat senators voting in lockstep to impeach former President Donald Trump are other good examples.

Democrats are increasingly unified on all of the major issues and policy objectives, including immigration (they are for the continuation of Biden’s open-border policies), abortion (as rabid pro-abortionists, this is perhaps the single unifying issue among Democrats), climate alarmism (all congressional Democrats voted for the thinly disguised Green New Deal provisions that made up a significant part of the Inflation Reduction Act), and voting rights (they don’t support election integrity laws, and not a single Democrat has supported full forensic audits of elections in any state).

Democracy Defined

As far as Xi’s claim that China is a “whole process people’s democracy” is concerned, all of the country’s institutions are entirely controlled by the CCP. The notion that anything is approaching a genuine participatory democracy where all Chinese people—not just the communists—have a say in running the country is absurd. All provincial and national senior government officials in communist China are elected by the appropriate people’s congress deputies or are appointed, not democratically elected by Chinese citizens.

The eight tiny political parties that the communists allow to operate include approximately 1.25 million people out of a total population of around 1.4 billion. Each party is aligned ideologically with the CCP by design and control. Any dissenting voices are crushed. Western concepts such as “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” are discarded by the communists, whose domestic political goals are despotism and tyranny through a perpetual one-party rule.

Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping and other leaders applaud during the closing session of the rubber-stamp legislature's conference at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on March 11, 2022. Leo Ramirez/AFP via Getty Images

In short, the CCP’s “whole process people’s democracy” is a sham and nothing more than a propaganda tool.

The Democratic Party uses the word “democracy” routinely to achieve its political objectives, too. Phrases like “defending our democracy” and “saving our democracy” abound in speeches by senior Democrats. One example of Democrats “defending democracy” is defeating all attempts to strengthen election integrity by equating voter ID laws to voter suppression. Never mind that election fraud enabled by weak voter ID requirements itself undermines democracy by negating the legal votes of American citizens.

Another example is the Democrats’ continual reference to Trump supporters as “threats to our democracy.” Even Republicans-In-Name-Only (RINO) such as Rep. Liz Cheney (RINO-Wyo.), who are ideologically aligned with Democrats on this particular issue, complained about the “unraveling of our democracy“ when she was ousted from the House Republican leadership in May 2021 for her willing participation in the Democrats’ J6 witch hunt. She received a taste of how democracy works on Aug. 16 when Wyoming primary voters overwhelmingly voted her out, losing by over a 30-point margin to Trump-endorsed Harriet Hageman. Isn’t that how democracy works?

The queen of “defending our democracy” has to be Hillary Clinton. Let’s take a brief walk down memory lane:

• In September 2019, Clinton claimed that “voter suppression” (for example, Republican efforts to implement strong voter identification laws) has led to a “crisis in democracy.”
• In December 2019, during impeachment deliberations, she claimed that Trump was “waging war“ against democracy.
• In June 2022, Clinton opined that “we’re about to lose our democracy,” thanks to Trump. Also, she predicted the “end of democracy“ if Republicans win the midterm elections in November.
• A search of her Twitter account results in dozens of references to “defending our democracy” over the years.

Hillary Clinton speaks during the New York State Democratic Convention in New York on Feb. 17, 2022. Seth Wenig/AP Photo

Clinton is hardly the only Democrat who has weaponized “democracy” against Republicans and other political opponents. Some examples include the following:

In June 2021, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) slammed Trump for “poisoning our democracy” with his fraud “big lie,” as headlined here.

In December 2021, The Atlantic published a whole special issue on “American Democracy in Crisis,” with articles from a host of Democrats.

In March, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) expressed her “fears for democracy“ if Republicans retake control of Congress in November.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), with Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), speaks during a Jan. 6 committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on July 12, 2022. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

In April, J6 committee member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) claimed that “we have to save our democracy to save our species.”

Is this just political hyperbole or do the Democrats seriously believe that a resounding Republican victory during the midterm elections would somehow “end democracy” in the United States? That the will of the people being expressed to toss the Democrats out for policies that have resulted in stagflation and open borders is in direct defiance to “democracy in America”?

It seems like Democrats define “democracy” as only working when Democrats get elected. That seems similar to how the CCP views “whole process people’s democracy” working in China!

Call it “democracy with democrat characteristics.” It is almost as if Democrats are trying to mimic the Chinese Communist Party in pushing narratives that, if followed by American voters, would result in Democrat one-party rule ad infinitum in the United States. And we know where that road leads by observing communist China: despotism and tyranny.

Concluding Thoughts

The parallels between the CCP and the Democratic Party on certain topics are definitely eerie. Unified messaging, lockstep voting, and democracy are defined and used as political weapons. Toss in mask mandates, economic lockdowns, social controls, and vaccine mandates. Perhaps it is proof that authoritarians everywhere exhibit the same tendencies regardless of race, color, or creed variations.

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