By Trevor Loudon | The Epoch Times | December 16, 2019,Updated: December 16, 2019
Commentary
America’s main pro-China communist party Liberation Road is working overtime to win Florida for the Democratic Party in the 2020 presidential election.
With 29 Electoral College votes—behind only California and Texas and tied with New York—Florida may well decide the 2020 election. California and New York are deeply blue states and Texas is moderately red, so purplish Florida will be heavily targeted as the most significant “swing state” in the nation.
Liberation Road Maoists finally turned Virginia blue in 2020. They’re now using similar tactics to flip Florida.
Liberation Road (until April this year known as Freedom Road Socialist Organization or FRSO) flipped Virginia by signing up at least 300,000 new minority voters over the last several years and working with then-Gov. Terry McAuliffe to restore voting rights for an estimated 200,000 former felons.
Working through the New Florida Majority and allied organizations FRSO/Liberation Road has signed up hundreds of thousands of new minority voters in Florida and helped pass a referendum giving 1.4 million “Sunshine State” former felons the right to vote.
They also helped to raise the Democratic vote for their friend Andrew Gillum in the 2018 governor’s race. Gillum only lost because Donald Trump endorsed Republican Ron DeSantis who called Gillum out for the socialist he undoubtedly is. Given that Gillum is now working with the Florida left to sign up another million minority Democratic voters, it’s entirely possible that China’s American franchise Liberation Road may well decide who wins the 2020 election.
Though never FRSO’s strongest section, the Miami branch has been reinforced in recent years with comrades from North Carolina, California, and the Northeast.
Perera founded Miami-based The New Florida Majority circa 2009 (as Florida New Majority). He would staff his new organization with Maoist comrades, including political director Badili Jones—one of the very few open FRSO members.
Perera trained in 2005 at the FRSO-connected and Oakland California-based “community organizer” school Rockwood Leadership Institute. The New Florida Majority’s current executive director Andrea Mercado trained at Rockwood in 2013. Andrew Gillum served his time there in 2012.
In 2007, Perera (who now runs programs for the Ford Foundation) and John Liss of New Virginia Majority, established a nationwide umbrella group for FRSO-affiliated community groups called the Right to the City Alliance.
Moving Florida Left
The New Florida Majority immediately set out to harness the power of minority voters to move Florida left.
“Through street-level organizing, The New Florida Majority is overcoming the dark days of racism and divisiveness in the Sunshine State to bring the new light of fairness and equity to all residents.
“In 2012, The New Florida Majority’s mobilization efforts resulted in the election of ten new progressive Federal and State legislators in Florida. Through our Breakthrough campaign, we reached more than 250,000 voters across the state, 76% of which turned out on election day.
“This year, The New Florida Majority organizers are mobilizing leaders to significantly expand democratic rights for communities that have been historically marginalized, excluded, and silenced. The key components of the campaign are voting rights, immigration reform, fighting mass incarceration, and standing up for women and our young people.”
Victories included Orlando area congressman Darren Soto and Miami area State Sen. Dwight Bullard—who now serves as the New Florida Majority’s political director.
In recent years, the New Florida Majority has chalked up victory after victory—local and state-wide. All apparently under the nose of the Florida Republican Party.
According to the group’s website the ”Majority” can claim credit for:
“• 31,000 new voter registrations in low-income black & brown neighborhoods, with 32,277 voters contacted, in 2017 alone.
• Helped to win $15/hr living wage legislation in the City of Miami.
• Citizen-lobbying effort led to creation of low-income community representative on the City of Miami Sea Level Rise Committee.
• Led effort to collect 127,000 petitions to get campaign finance reform on 2018 ballot.
• Won lawsuit to extend voter registration period after Hurricane Matthew, which enabled 108,000 additional people to register during this election cycle.
• Field programs helped to win important down-ballot races including Opa Locka City Commissioner Matthew Pigatt, State Senator Jose Javier Rodriguez, State Representative Robert Ascencio.”
Socialist SWAG
But by far the New Florida Majority’s most important campaigns to date were the almost successful Gillum campaign and the concurrent push to pass Amendment 4—which gave most convicted felons the right to vote.
“In 2018, New Florida Majority made history with the passage of Amendment 4, which restored voting rights to over 1.4 million Floridians with felony convictions. Our work, along with the work of so many other groups who fought so hard for that win, continues today as the state legislature attempts to roll back our hard-won victory.”
Both campaigns saw the New Florida Majority deepen its ties with several allied organizations across the state through a new umbrella organization the Statewide Alliance Group (SWAG).
The new alliance included:
• The New Florida Majority • Dream Defenders—a black-led pro-Palestine group closely affiliated to Liberation Road. • Organize Florida—led by Stephanie Porta, former leader of Florida ACORN. • Florida Immigrant Coalition—led by Maria Rodriguez, a 2009 Rockwood Leadership Institute alumni and close affiliate of Liberation Road. • SEIU—heavily penetrated by Liberation Road and other communist groups. • Faith in Florida—part of Faith in Action, formerly known as the PICO National Network, which is closely affiliated to some Liberation Road supporters. • Central Florida Jobs with Justice—led by Denise Diaz, who is closely affiliated to Liberation Road and the Communist Party USA.
Defending Gillum
SWAG’s first job was to defend Gillum from his Republican opponent DeSantis’s well-justified and very effective “red-baiting.”
Liberation Road calls the conservative, Christian, Republican-leaning South the “New Confederacy”—and Gillum was supposed to help the Maoists defeat the New “Confederates” in Florida.
“Gillum seemed like someone who comrades could work with in office.
“Falling in line with the New Confederacy, DeSantis was less concerned with changing liberal minds than attacking liberal ideologies, making inaccurate associations of his opponent, and getting conservative voters to the polls.
“One door hanger asked the question, ‘Does this sound familiar?’ It depicted a picture of a street mural, by a local artist, of Andrew Gillum. Underneath the picture were the words, ‘Andrew Gillum: Another Big Government, Socialist Dictator’ followed by three more street murals of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Fidel Castro, and Hugo Chavez. It boldly proclaimed, ‘Don’t let the socialists take over Florida! Republicans must vote, there’s too much at stake.’
“On one hand, the door hanger was laughable, while on the other, it spoke to the intentional decision of grassroots organizations and a union to work collectively as Statewide Alliance Group …”
The attacks on Gillum worked. Although SWAG lifted the Democratic Party vote by a staggering 40 percent over the 2014 elections, DeSantis so boldly called out Gillum’s socialism that the Republican vote rose even more. Florida was saved from a socialist governor by razor thin 33,000 votes.
Anti-communism works.
FRSO did better with Amendment 4, however, which passed 64 percent to 34 percent.
Thompson explained how the Florida left came together to pass Amendment 4:
“The Dream Defenders (DD) took a deep dive in community to create an ideology reminiscent of the Black Panther Party Ten Point Program with seven freedoms. DD launched the #freedompapers, claiming #thisistheyear, focusing on building with community to target private prison corporations, like GEO Group, and transform the Florida political landscape.
“Florida Immigrant Coalition (FLIC) along with Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) and United We Dream focused on immigrant rights and abolishing ICE. The New Florida Majority (NFM), SEIU, Faith in Florida, Jobs with Justice, and the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) Electoral Justice Project appealed to their vast membership bases.
“In addition, the Miami Workers Center (MWC) centered the Movement for Black Women and Girls with Soul Sista’s. Power U Center for Social Change continues to inform youth. Community Justice Project (CJP) supported Poetry for the People’s, Maroon Poetry Festival, which amplified the Black Arts Movement and use of art in activism.
“The age old social justice organizations such as NAACP, ACLU, Faith in Florida, PACT, and the likes, also joined the effort to get Amendment 4 passed. All used the same messaging in their conversations which advocated for a Yes Vote on Amendment 4. The strategy was to restore the rights of over 1.4 million voters as freedom voters.
“It was a brilliant, coordinated strategy in alignment and consistent communication that is beginning to consolidate a united front against the New Confederacy in Florida.”
Can Florida Be Saved From Socialism?
Most Florida voters who supported Amendment 4 thought they were simply being kind to people who had paid their debt to society. Many of the Amendment 4 “Yes” voters also voted against socialism and for Ron DeSantis. They had no real idea of who was behind the ballot initiative or why.
FRSO Maoists and their allies basically fooled several million compassionate Floridians into voting for their own destruction. It was never about restoring rights to the formerly incarcerated. It was all about several hundred thousand new potential Democratic voters.
Old-line Maoists believed that all power sprang “from the barrel of a gun.” Modern Liberation Road Maoists know that such crude tactics won’t work in the United States. They believe that total power can be better achieved by mobilizing minority voters to give a hard-left Democratic Party an unbeatable majority. Different tactics—same eventual result.
Liberation Road/The New Virginia Majority used Democratic-leaning ex-felons to turn “The Old Dominion” blue. You can bet that Liberation Road/The New Florida Majority is out there right now registering Florida’s ex-felons for the same purpose.
President Donald Trump would be well advised to hold several large rallies in Florida next year. His Sunshine State base loves him like a chocolate. If he’s there for them, they will turn out for him.
Donald Trump, Jr. recently told Fox and Friends that the 2020 election would be “communism versus freedom.” Florida will prove him correct.
Feature photo: Trays of election ballots are seen at the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Election Warehouse in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Nov. 15, 2018. Michele Eve Sandberg/AFP via Getty Images
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.
As the Democratic Party moves ever further to the left, it has become normal to see communists and socialists running for office on the party’s ballot line.
Usually, Marxists run for county commissions, school boards, state legislatures, and Congress.
Now they are starting to run even for the U.S. Senate in 2020.
Sema Hernandez is standing in the U.S. Senate Texas Democratic primary to hopefully take on incumbent Republican Sen. John Cornyn in 2020.
Hernandez, a health care worker, is an activist with the Poor People’s Campaign. She is also a member of both Houston Democratic Socialists of America and the Houston branch of the Communist Party USA.
Hernandez stood in the Democratic primary in 2018 against Beto O’Rourke and earned a respectable 250,000 votes—probably the best in recent times for a Communist Party comrade in Texas.
It’s still technically illegal to stand for public office as a communist in Texas—but it’s apparently OK for a communist to stand for office as long as they call themselves a Democrat.
Yana Ludwig is the only Democrat so far declared in the primary to stand for an open U.S. Senate seat in overwhelmingly Republican Wyoming.
Both she and her husband, Matt Stannard, the former debate coach at the University of Wyoming, are active in SE Wyoming Democratic Socialists of America.
A Laramie resident, Ludwig has been active in the “gay” and “feminist” movements since the early 1990s.
She has participated in numerous women’s marches, “peace” protests, and many “ecological activist actions,” including the People’s Climate March in New York City in 2014, according to her campaign website.
Ludwig has also been the director of numerous nonprofits, including Project Grow Community Gardens, Recycling Jackson, and the Center for Sustainable and Cooperative Culture.
It’s hard work being a socialist in Wyoming and almost impossible to win statewide office as a Democrat—let alone as an open Marxist.
Betsy Sweet is standing in the Maine Democratic Senate primary in the hope of challenging left-wing Republican incumbent Susan Collins in 2020.
Sweet said that “a women’s right to choose, health care for all, and climate change” are the main reasons why she decided to challenge Collins.
Sweet lost the Democratic primary for governor in 2018, even though she had the endorsement and active support of the Southern Maine Democratic Socialists of America.
Sweet is a former director of the Maine Women’s Lobby and the Maine Commission for Women.
In the early 1980s, she represented the far-left Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom on the Communist Party USA-controlled U.S. Peace Council—an affiliate of the Soviet-controlled World Peace Council.
Paula Jean Swearengin is standing in the West Virginia Democratic Senate primary to hopefully challenge incumbent Republican Shelley Moore Capito in 2020.
In the 2018 primary, she unsuccessfully challenged incumbent Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin.
Swearengin was formerly active with the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition and the Keepers of the Mountain Foundation. She has addressed the United Nations and spoken at rallies and colleges across the country on environmental issues.
An early Bernie Sanders supporter, Swearengin attended the DSA-run Chicago People’s Summit in 2017. She was also the subject of a documentary alongside DSA and Congress member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, DSA Nevada congressional candidate Amy Vilela, and DSA and Communist Party USA-affiliated Missouri congressional candidate Cori Bush.
Swearengin was also supported in 2018 by far-left Justice Democrats and DSA-influenced Brand New Congress.
Cristina Tzintzun is, like Hernandez, standing in the U.S. Senate Texas Democratic primary to hopefully take on Cornyn in 2020. Of all the candidates profiled in this article, she is by far the one most likely to succeed.
Tzintzun founded and ran the Austin-based Workers Defense Project, a leftist immigrants’ rights group in the orbit of the Maoist-leaning pro-China group Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO).
In 2013–14, Tzintzun spent a year studying with the FRSO-affiliated Rockwood Leadership Institute, an Oakland, California-based school for “community organizers.”
Tzintzun has worked closely with DSA activists in Austin, Texas, including Alice Embree, the Fetonte family, and the late Glenn Scott.
As the founder of Jolt Texas, Tzintzun organized the enrollment of thousands of new Democratic-leaning Hispanic voters across the state.
She was recruited out of Jolt Texas to stand for the U.S. Senate by well-connected former Bernie Sanders senior staffers Becky Bond and Zach Malitz and former ACORN Texas leader Ginny Goldman.
Bond and Malitz were both senior staffers in the 2018 Beto O’Rourke Senate campaign. They are also both colleagues of wealthy San Francisco socialist Michael Kieschnick—who is also a big fan of Tzintzun.
Bond is the co-author of “Rules for Revolutionaries: How Big Organizing Can Change Everything.”
Malitz, a DSA affiliate, will serve as a senior adviser on the Tzintzun senate campaign. Goldman, lately a leader of the Communist Party USA-infiltrated Texas Organizing Project, will serve as Tzintzun’s campaign chair.
The other Democrats in primary, and probably Cornyn, are in for a tough race.
Feature photo: Community organizers Cristina Tzintzún Ramírez (L) and Brittany Packnett share how they’ve built a social movement, at The Summit on Race in America at the LBJ Presidential Library on April 9, 2019. Tzintzún is founder and director of Jolt, a Texas-based organization that builds the political power and influence of Latinos. Ralph Barrera/LBJ Library via Wikimedia Commons
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.
In September, the United States’ largest Marxist organization, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), posted a list of “progressives” running for the House of Representatives in 2020.
The list, posted on a DSA Reddit page, names more than 100 candidates in over 30 states, from Alaska to Florida, California to Maine. The list includes many hopeless candidates, but also includes several who have a good chance of winning seats, or at least running their primary or general election opponents close.
In 2018, the DSA elected two members to congress—Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)—plus two sympathizers, Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.)—collectively known as “The Squad.”
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) questions U.S. Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin as he testifies during a House Committee on Financial Services hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on May 22, 2019. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
With an increased membership (now around 55,000) and considerably more electoral experience, the DSA could elect more members and several more supporters in 2020.
Some of the candidates are also closely aligned with two pro-China DSA allies, Liberation Road and the Communist Party USA.
Several on the list ran as first-timers in 2018 against well-established incumbents and lost in many cases by under 10 points. With “on the ground” and financial support from the DSA, Liberation Road, Communist Party USA, Working Families Party, Progressive Democrats of America, Our Revolution, and left-controlled unions such as the SEIU and National Nurses United, many of them will be competitive against Democratic and Republican opponents.
Comrade Candidates
In Arizona’s 1st Congressional District, far-left DSA-friendly Eva Putzova is mounting a serious primary challenge against incumbent moderate Democrat Tom O’Halleran.
In California’s 29th District, DSA comrade Angelica Duenas is aiming to replace incumbent Democrat Tony Cardenas, while DSA comrade Shahid Buttar is going up against Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in California’s 12th District. Strangely, another DSA member and former Massachusetts state legislator, Tom Gallagher, is contesting the same seat.
In California’s 50th District, the DSA-friendly grandson of a Palestinian terrorist,Ammar Campa-Najjar lost narrowly to a scandal-plagued Republican incumbent Duncan Hunter in 2018. Campa-Najjar is back for a second shot, but his Republican opponent may be different this time.
Ammar Campa-Najjar (D-CA) speaks to reporters outside the Federal Courthouse in San Diego, CA, on Aug. 23, 2018. Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images
In California’s 53rd District, Jose Cabellero is challenging incumbent Democrat Susan Davis with both DSA and Liberation Road support.
Florida’s 27th District likely won’t change much this cycle as low-polling DSA-friendly Michael Hepburn runs again against Democrat incumbent Donna Shalala.
In Georgia’s 1st District, DSA-friendly Lisa Ring is making a second attempt at sending Republican incumbent Buddy Carter to an early retirement. In Georgia’s 7th District, Nabilah Islam is running for the open seat, while Michael Owens is contesting Georgia’s 13th District against moderate Democrat David Scott. Both Islam and Owen have requested the endorsement of Metro Atlanta DSA.
In Illinois’s 3rd District, DSA congress member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and DSA Chicago Alderman Carlos Rosa have endorsed Marie Newman, who came within a whisker of defeating moderate Democrat Dan Lipinski in 2018. Overly optimistic DSA member Anthony Clark is running for the second time against far-left Danny Davis (himself a former DSA member) in Illinois’s 7th District. In Illinois’s 10th District, another DSA comrade, Adam Broad, is running hard against moderate Democrat incumbent Brad Schneider.
In Iowa’s 4th District, JD Scholten ran embattled incumbent Republican Steve King close—with DSA support. He’ll be lucky to come within 15 points this time around.
Top-ranking Democrat Steny Hoyer is probably not too concerned about losing in Maryland’s 5th District—even though his “democratic socialist” opponent Mckayla Wilkes has the endorsement of the more than 2,000-strong Metro DC DSA.
In Massachusetts’s 4th District, DSA-backed “democratic socialist” Ihssane Leckey has a narrow opening as her Democratic incumbent opponent Joe Kennedy III has decided to run for U.S. Senate. In Massachusetts’s 6th District, DSA-friendly Nathaniel Mulcahy has even less chance against Democratic incumbent Seth Moulton.
In Minnesota’s 2nd District, DSA supporter Johnny Akzam is making his second run for the Democrat held seat.
In Missouri’s 1st District, Pastor Cori Bush ran about 10 points behind leftist Democrat incumbent Lacy Clay in 2018. With probable DSA, Communist Party USA, and Liberation Road support, Bush could well pull off an upset in this district.
Nebraska’s 2nd District could possibly go left with Kara Eastman’s second run for the seat. In 2018 she won the Democratic primary with DSA help, then lost the general to a Republican. Moderate Democrats will fight her hard in the primary.
In New York’s 12th District, DSA member Lauren Ashcraft is fighting a longshot battle against incumbent Democrat Carolyn Maloney. New York’s 24th District is a bit more hopeful for the far left. DSA-supported Dana Balter came within 5 points of Republican John Katko in 2018. If Balter can get through the Democratic primary, she may have a shot.
North Carolina’s 1st District sees DSA member DeAndre Carter go up against far-left incumbent Democrat GK Butterfield. In North Carolina’s 4th District, Boy Scout and DSA comrade Daniel Ulysses Lockwood has even less chance against incumbent leftist Democrat David Price.
Ohio’s 3rd District could possibly see a shock result as DSA, and possibly Liberation Road-backed, Morgan Harper goes up against incumbent Democrat Joyce Beatty.
In Oregon’s 3rd District, DSA member Albert Lee has a good shot against incumbent far-left Democrat Earl Blumenauer. DSA-supported Mark Gamba has less chance against moderate Democrat Kurt Schrader in Oregon’s 5th District. Long-time Liberation Road affiliate Doyle Canning is even braver to take on far-left incumbent Democrat Pete DeFazio in Oregon’s 4th District.
In South Carolina’s 2nd District, DSA member Lawrence Nathaniel is valiantly challenging incumbent Republican Joe Wilson in one of the most heavily Republican districts in the country.
Texas’s 25th District sees DSA member Heidi Sloan competing against one other leftist Democrat in the primary for an open Republican seat. Support from around 1,000 Austin DSA comrades may well see Sloan through at least the primary.
DSA endorsee Stevens Orozco is standing in Texas’s 18th District to unseat the deeply entrenched Sheila Jackson-Lee. Houston DSA and probably the powerful local Communist Party USA branch will likely help out.
Jessica Cisneros is running a brace challenge in Texas’s 28th District against moderate Democrat Henry Cuellar. Cisneros’s campaign has borrowed DSA congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s DSA-friendly adviser Andres Bernal to help out.
Texas’s 10th District could see a possible far-left victory. Democratic candidate Mike Siegel, son of former Communist Workers Party leader Dan Siegel, came within 5 points of beating Republican Mike McCaul in 2018. With Siegel’s strong DSA and union backing, the Republican Party needs to take Mike Siegel very seriously indeed.
Over in Washington’s 10th District, DSA member Joshua Collins is challenging moderate Democrat Denny Heck. In nearby Washington’s 6th District, another DSA comrade, Rebecca Parson, is taking on left to moderate Democrat Derek Kilmer. The strong DSA and small Communist Party USA presence in these districts might help Collins and Parson a little.
Should We Worry?
While only a handful (if any) of the candidates on DSA’s list will get elected, their mere presence on the ballot will damage this country in several ways.
Firstly, they will serve to further legitimize socialism—something that should rank very near the top of the Evil Graph.
Secondly, election campaigns to communists are more about recruitment than winning elections. The DSA and its allies will win very few of the seats they contest, but they may end up seducing several thousand new souls to socialism. That will impact us all over time.
Thirdly, these candidates will serve to drive the Democratic Party even further to the left. That will benefit the Republicans in the short term, but in the long term, it makes the whole nation morally and politically poorer.
Democratic Socialists of America holds a rally in New York on Oct. 30, 2017. (Working Families Party/CC BY-NC 2.0)
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.
Pro-China communists from the Liberation Road group have insinuated their supporters and allies into several key positions in the city government of Durham, North Carolina.
Liberation Road has been highly influential in flipping neighboring Virginia from a Republican to a Democratic state; North Carolina is the next target.
Liberation Road has a strategy of destroying the Republican Party base in the South—what it terms the “New Confederacy”—by using the minority voting base to flip county by county, state by state to the Democrats.
If the communists can turn North Carolina blue, President Donald Trump will likely lose the 2020 election—handing Democrats and their socialist allies a near-permanent monopoly on power. By establishing a political base in Durham, the comrades aim to project their power and city resources across the entire state.
The 2020 presidential election may well be won or lost in North Carolina.
North Carolina Maoists
Since 1985, the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) has been the pre-eminent pro-China communist party in the country, absorbing cadre from several other Maoist groups along the way, including the Communist Workers Party, Line of March, and League of Revolutionary Struggle.
In April this year, the FRSO changed its name to Liberation Road—partially at least to sound fewer alarm bells as it proceeds to infiltrate the Democratic Party.
In 1988, FRSO had fewer than six members in North Carolina: a white lawyer from Revolutionary Workers Headquarters and a handful of black comrades from the Amilcar Cabral/Paul Robeson Collective. Through the 1990s, FRSO recruited more old Maoists and a new layer of university students from Durham, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill. They even recruited a couple of former Communist Party USA members, and in recent years seem to have absorbed some cadre from the pro-Iran and North Korea Workers World Party.
In the 2000s, FRSO began sending comrades from California, Massachusetts, and New York to beef up the numbers, soon making the Maoists the most significant force on the left in the region. This was part of a deliberate colonization of Southern states, particularly Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee, and Florida. FRSO targeted the South because of its high concentration of black and Hispanic potential voters, which, coupled with a history of racial polarization, made for great revolutionary potential.
North Carolina, one of the most politically marginal Republican-held states in the South was a prime target. Durham, with the largest concentration of black voters in the state, became ground zero for the Maoists. FRSO supporters began to infiltrate Durham student unions, community groups, labor unions, churches, and local government.
Maoist strategy is all about building a counter-state—taking over whole areas to form a state-within-state to serve as a base to spread revolution across a much wider area. Parts of Virginia are moving in that direction. Jackson, Mississippi, is already there. Durham is well on the way.
In recent years, FRSO has moved away from traditional street activism into more of an electoral focus. The organization now has the numbers and influence to impact elections at both state and local level.
FRSO is extremely secretive about membership, but I estimate there are around a hundred cadre in the Triangle area and another 200 supporters or allies. Many FRSO/Liberation Road people lead key organizations that are able to mobilize several thousand people at a time.
To achieve its ends, FRSO has infiltrated several existing organizations and has created others.
Durham People’s Alliance
In the early 1970s, Durham activists affiliated with the communist New American Movement formed two collectives—a health collective and a socialist feminist collective. In 1973, the health collective became the Durham Organizing Committee (DOC). The DOC later split, some members entering a Marxist-Leninist collective that eventually became the Communist Workers Party and others forming the Durham People’s Alliance (DPA).
Since that time, the DPA has become a major force in local politics. With the ability to raise money and a small army of door knockers and phone-bankers, DPA’s endorsement is widely sought by candidates on the left.
North Carolina Democratic congressmembers David Price and GK Butterfield and former Sen. Kay Hagan have all been endorsed and helped by DPA’s 2,000 members—as have dozens of lower-level politicians.
Around 2014, FRSO cadre Aiden Graham joined the DPA board; in the same year DPA helped elect FRSO leader Sendolo Diaminah, a self-described “black queer communist,” to the Durham School Board, though he later resigned before finishing his term.
Durham Association of Educators
The Triangle area has experienced widespread education labor unrest in recent years, mainly because of the Durham Association of Educators (DAE), a local affiliate of the North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE) and the National Education Association.
Longtime FRSO/Liberation Road cadre Bryan Proffit is on the board of the NCAE and was president of the DAE.
With an army of fired up leftist teachers on their roster, ready to rally or door-knock on command, the DAE has also become a major force in Durham left politics.
Durham For All
Launched in early 2016, Durham For All grew out of a group of FRSO supporters who had been working together for some years on local politics.
In 2014 and 2015, members of the founding team began experimenting with building political power through local elections, and led “victories to elect young, progressive people of color into local offices.”
Durham For All is a completely Liberation Road creation and is the counterpart of similar front groups Richmond For All in Virginia and Memphis For All in Tennessee.
Durham For All plans to build a force in Durham of 10,000 people to first take control of the city, then the entire state. The first goals were to take control of the City Council in 2017 to 2019 then to flip the state to the Democrats in 2020.
“Corporations and right-wing politicians have rigged the political system, and we’ve had enough. Together, we are building a cross-class, multiracial movement in Durham that is 10,000 people strong. …
“Power comes from thousands of people speaking up and deciding to take action. That’s why our plan is based on building people power from the ground up. The plan has three stages:
“Stage 1: Build a Mandate. 2017. With the launch of our 10K Strong Campaign, we trained leaders like you to ask family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers to sign our 10K Strong Pledge and join the movement for a Durham for All. In less than a year, over 4,500 people said “yes” and signed on! These commitments were the foundation for a new political vision of a Durham rooted in the principles of a Durham for all of us. Grounded in these principles, we organized in working class and people of color communities to find new leaders and get out the vote. Together, we elected a progressive, people of color majority to Durham’s City Council!
“Stage 2: Build a Model. 2018. Through our Decriminalize Durham Campaign, we successfully piloted a base-building model that (1) activated and developed leaders in working class and people of color communities, (2) invited and supported hundreds of people to take new risks in organizing, and (3) translated election victories into policy wins via participatory democracy. We endorsed and elected officials who committed to fighting mass incarceration and stopping deportations ….
“Stage 3: Build a Movement. 2019-2020. In the third stage, we are harnessing the power of our movement to create platforms for co-governance and to pass policy. We are continuing to refine and expand our base-building model to bring new leaders and thousands of voters into the critical state and federal elections in 2020. Working with groups in rural areas, towns, and other cities, we will be part of unleashing millions of engaged residents and leaders in a movement to win back North Carolina from the far right.”
So far, the goal to take over the Durham City Council has gone as planned.
In 2015, the DPA elected Charlie Reece and Jillian Johnson and helped re-elect Steve Schewel to the six-member Durham City Council.
Reece was treasurer of the North Carolina Democratic Party and a past board member and secretary of the DPA.
Johnson was a long-time FRSO affiliate and later served in the leadership of Durham For All alongside comrades Sendolo Diaminah, Aidan Graham, Anna Grant, Tony Macias, and Bennett Carpenter. Steve Schewel was a former radical magazine editor.
In 2017, the DPA successfully backed Schewel for Durham mayor. The DPA also elected their longtime board member and Durham For All supporter DeDreana Freeman and another former DPA board member Vernetta Alston to the City Council.
In 2019, Johnson, Reece, and newcomer Javiera Caballero ran as a leftist “Bull City Together” ticket backed by the DPA.
Schewel, Johnson, Reece, and Caballero were all endorsed as a team by Durham For All.
Liberation Road’s Bryan Proffitt also endorsed the team, as did the DAE PAC, which also supported a “$95 million housing bond to combat gentrification and end the rapid displacement of our communities.”
The left won everything. They passed the housing bond and now hold five of the six City Council seats, plus the mayoralty.
In 2018, DPA members also helped elect Satana Deberry for district attorney and Clarence Birkhead for sheriff.
FRSO leader Sendolo Diaminah noted in a Facebook post:
“Tonight we made history in Durham by electing Satana Deberry for DA and Clarence Birkhead for sheriff – both committed to ending mass incarceration and fighting deportations. There are so many things to say about this but tonight I just feel humbled and nourished by the calling to build political power with our people.”
So, stage one of the FRSO Durham For All plan is pretty well accomplished, according to their original aims. Liberation Road and its allied organizations pretty much have a lock on North Carolina’s fourth largest city and its 275,000 citizens.
Can the Maoists Take the State?
Liberation Road has a strong presence in the state. So do their allies the Democratic Socialists of America, which has branches in Charlotte, Durham, Greensboro, Raleigh, Chapel Hill, Asheville, Winston-Salem, and the Yadkin Valley.
Liberation Road leader Aiden Graham also serves as the campaign manager for the North Carolina State AFL-CIO.
Between Durham For All, the DPA, DAE, North Carolina AFL-CIO, and the voter registration groups listed above, Liberation Road and its allies have the power to mobilize several thousand election workers against Republican candidates.
If the left is working hard to re-elect Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and Attorney General Josh Stein, they’re even more determined to defeat Republican Sen. Thom Tillis—considered one the most vulnerable in the country. The Democrats need to flip five State Senate seats for a majority and six seats in the State House.
If the left can defeat Sen. Tillis and flip one or both houses of the state legislature, North Carolina will be well down the road to becoming a Democratic state, just like Virginia was about three years ago.
Pro-China communists from FRSO/Liberation Road stole Virginia from under the nose of the Republican Party. If North Carolina is allowed to go down the same path then Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and Texas will soon follow suit. The Republican Party will then be finished as a national force.
There is no excuse for the Republican Party to allow that to happen—if they care at all about their own survival that is.
Featured photo: A woman votes on November 8, 2016 in Durham, North Carolina. African American turn out to the polls was reporting low across the battleground state. (Photo by Sara D. Davis/Getty Images)
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.
The Republican Party seems oblivious to a major threat developing in its Southern stronghold. Pro-China communists from the Liberation Road group are working to flip Republican-held states in the South one by one. Virginia has already fallen.
North Carolina, Florida, and Tennessee are next on the list. If the communists can flip toss-up states Florida and North Carolina in 2020, President Donald Trump will likely be a one-term president and the Republican Party will be finished as a national force.
While probably numbering fewer than 2,000 members, the ultra-secretive Liberation Road may be able to remove China’s number one enemy from the White House for a measly few million dollars.
Known until April as the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), Liberation Road is an amalgamation of several Maoist and anarchist factions, some dating back to the anti-Vietnam War movement of the 1960s.
Turn to Electoral Politics
In 2016, FRSO made a strong turn toward electoral politics in response to the electoral dominance of the Republican Party (especially in the South) and the election of President Trump.
FRSO/Liberation Road, like most parties of Maoist origin, is heavily focused on racial and sexual minorities. The Black Lives Matter movement is an FRSO front group. Ending “white privilege” is a major part of Liberation Road strategy. The proliferation of gender pronouns we now have to deal with also comes partially from Liberation Road.
According to Liberation Road, socialism will come to the United States by rallying minorities against “white capitalism” and minority voters against what they term “The New Confederacy.”
“The New Confederacy is the white united front that, building up over the past 40 years, has used white supremacy, cisheteropatriarchy, and austerity to rally sectors of the white middle strata and white workers around the leadership of the most reactionary forces of capital. The Republican Party is its political instrument.”
Originally based mainly in Massachusetts, New York, and California, FRSO has been moving comrades into Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, and other Southern states for some years. Mostly they fought the “New Confederacy” through protest and agitation. Tearing down Confederate statues is a favorite Maoist tactic, for example.
Now, after building considerable strength in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Florida, Liberation Road is strong enough to influence elections and elect members and supporters to public office.
Grand Strategy
Liberation Road’s 2019 Main Political Report lays out the organization’s “line” and plans very clearly. If you can stomach the pseudo-scientific Marxist prose that is.
“The waves of protest that spread across the county after the 2016 election showed the force of the people’s rage and resistance. But this resistance has grown, for the most part without a strategy to contend for power. We need to move from protest to power. We need to build independent political organization.”
Liberation Road essentially blames the South for all that is wrong with America. They believe that without the South, the United States could soon become a non-racist, gender fluid, climate-change battling, non-patriarchal socialist paradise.
“With the power the New Confederacy has gained through the use of the Republican Party, holding trifectas in 22 states, they destroy unions, deny climate change, push the most homophobic and transphobic propaganda and policy, overrule progressive local movements or laws by state legislative ‘preemption’, and organize to repeal every last trace of the New Deal and the Civil Rights movement.”
Liberation Road has the solution. The Republican stranglehold on the South must be broken county by county, state by state, by mobilizing the large black and Latino populations in the South in alliance with the existing white “progressive” minorities.
“In response, some new efforts by progressive forces have emerged, state by state, to bring together the multi-racial working class with minority nationalities and others to fight back. These efforts have several things in common.
“They have a broad vision of contending for power. They work in the street and in the election booth. They work inside and outside the Democratic Party. They fight austerity, white supremacy and/or cisheteropatriarchy. And they build on the strategic alliance of the working class – of all nationalities, races and languages – with mass movements based in communities of color.”
The question is, how can Liberation Road comrades use their manpower and influence to unite enough forces on the left and the center to defeat the New Confederacy? In their 2019–2022 draft Strategic Orientation plan, they state:
“We contend that it is only a united front led by an advanced layer of forces in opposition to white supremacy, austerity and cisheteropatriarchy that can defeat this enemy. A politics that both rejects and challenges—that offers a genuine alternative—to white supremacy, austerity, and cisheteropatriarchy is the only durable solution, and a united front must lead with those politics.
“The clearest path to organizing that united front is through engaging inthe electoral arena. Why do we place so much emphasis on the electoral arena in this moment? Because we believe this is the arena of struggle in which we are most clearly presented with the opportunity to construct the united front—to bring together social and political forces across and beyond self-interest. …
“Struggles become generalized when they enter into the broadest arena of politics. … The clearest and most practical way to do this is through elections, which necessarily involve and implicate the entire public.”
Working Through the Democratic Party
Liberation Road has learned from communist mistakes of the past and is committed to a very flexible strategy in its relations with the Democratic Party.
“Our approach is distinct from the Popular Front policy of the Communist Party prior to and during WWII, when it was a non-critical junior partner in the broad front of Left and center forces against Nazism and Fascism.
“That is, we are not calling for a political program that is just about electing any Democratic politician. Instead, we are calling for a clear progressive program that we fight for, through primaries, non-partisan races, and outside struggles; and commitment to a fight against our common enemy.
“This will look different depending on conditions: in Blue states, it may be the case that the advanced forces could struggle to a position to play a decisive leading role in a united front against the New Confederacy; in purple and red states, we may play secondary roles as we develop our forces and build organization and strength to ultimately contest for leadership in that front.”
The Power of ‘For All’
As serious revolutionaries, Liberation Road comrades know that the masses can best be unified around clear and meaningful slogans. Liberation Road has chosen two simple words to unify the base it wants to mobilize—“For All.”
This is already evident in Liberation Road’s newly created voter mobilization organizations: Richmond For All in Virginia and the more established Durham For All in North Carolina and Memphis For All in Tennessee.
“We believe that the way to build the ‘us’ is the For All. This represents a unity of the advanced and the link between the particular subjects of the united front.
“Here we propose that the For All frame be the generally adopted one for our organization, and that our work engage in the struggle for political power. We suggest that it is on the basis of For All that we can facilitate a broad unity on the foundation of the specific grievances of oppressed peoples that also invites a generalized public support and participation.”
Why We Must Have an Enemy
If anybody is wondering about the incessant propaganda from the left against President Trump, the Republican Party, conservatives, and traditional Christians—all components of the New Confederacy—Liberation Road makes its purpose clear.
“For there to be an us, there also has to be a them that we can define through relation to us. This is why it’s critically important to have an enemy—the racists-billionaires, the New Confederacy, and their political organization, the Republican Party. The naming of an enemy gives us the narrow target needed to direct the united front forces against. This in turn sets the foundation to define the lines of demarcation between the enemy and the people’s united front.”
Why the Republican Party Should Take Liberation Road Seriously
While they will never admit it, Liberation Road is working in the interests of China and the world revolutionary movement. They fully understand that the United States, and specifically President Trump, must be taken down if the revolution is to succeed.
Liberation Road’s many front organizations are richly funded through several major foundations and the Democracy Alliance—a network of more than 150 leftist billionaires and multi-millionaires including presidential candidate Tom Steyer, George Soros, socialist lawyer Steve Phillips, and many others. Liberation Road and their on-the-ground allies do not lack for resources.
Liberation Road has already flipped once reliably Republican Virginia. It took them 10 years, but they have already replicated much of their winning strategy in several other Southern states—some of which could go blue in 2020, or more likely 2022.
Liberation Road already heavily influences the local government in Durham, North Carolina’s most important city, and also has a strong influence in Memphis, Nashville, and Knoxville, Tennessee.
Liberation Road is also influential in Jackson, Mississippi, a town run by radical mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba.
In Florida and Georgia, FRSO was a major part of the coalitions that almost elected Andrew Gillum and Stacey Abrams to their respective governor’s mansions in 2018. In Florida, FRSO and its allies lifted Democratic voting by around 40 percent, which normally would have guaranteed victory.
Only because President Trump ignored the Republican Party hierarchy and endorsed strong insurgent conservative Ron De Santis were the voters able to narrowly stave off a shock Democratic victory.
While Republicans seem to be focusing on the Midwestern states, the big shock of election night 2020 might come from the South.
Feature image: Freedom Road Socialist Organization supporters during an anti-Trump march in Washington on Jan. 20, 2017. slowking4/GFDL 1.2
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.
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.
