‘Told You So’ Culture Ignores PTSD: The Platner Pile-On

[0:05] In the rush to tell us they told us so about Graham Platner, some progressive podcasters seem to ignore his PTSD trauma as a factor in his past behavior.

[0:17] The Cold War is back as Trump reboots the communism dodge to attack democratic socialists, making gains in local elections, and establishment Dems are more than happy to help him. This is Secular Left with Doug Berger, an independent, religion-free, progressive viewpoint on topics of the day.

[1:00] I was going to make this segment all about my views on the whole Graham Platner debacle. And in case people don’t know, Graham Platner was the former Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate for the state of Maine, who had a progressive politics. He had progressive politics, Medicare for all, you know, trying to deal with inflation and affordable housing and making sure veterans got their their treatments and things like that. All good things.

[1:39] And I liked his politics. I liked his plan. He had experience in the military. He served in the military for several years, fought at Fallujah in Iraq, fought in Afghanistan. Um, he also served as a mercenary, which means that he was hired by probably Blackwater and, and served there. And that happened to a lot of military men. Once their service was up, they wanted to stay in their service. And so that is one way, and then you can make money from it. So then he, you know, ends his military service, you know, settles in Maine is, I believe he’s originally from Maine and became, a crab farmer, you know, going out in the ocean and bringing up crabs and selling them. And so he also had that working man’s, you know, blue collar thing that Democratic voters really like. And he.

[2:45] The other thing that I liked about him was that the establishment Democrats, hated his guts because he wouldn’t play ball with them, with Chuck Schumer and some of those old geezers. In fact, they didn’t support him at first during the primary. They actually recruited the 80-year-old governor, popular governor, Janet Mills, to run against him in the Democratic primary. And, you know, that really ticked me off personally, because these establishment Democrats do that, is they go after these progressive candidates because they don’t like grassroots candidates. The DNC and Chuck Schumer and Jeffries, they don’t like upstart grassroots candidates. They want, basically, they want to tell voters who to vote for. They want to control who the candidate’s going to be. And that’s another reason why I supported Graham Platner. Even though I do not live in Maine and I could never vote for him, I did support his candidacy and let my friends know about it and such. So, of course, because he was so popular with the he had that populist image going and that working class blue collar thing going and the progressiveness, of course.

[4:11] Because his opponents couldn’t defeat his politics because it was resonating. He kept getting going up in the polls. They decide to tear him down as a person. And that’s what usually happens. So you get the opposition research that goes in and they dig and dig and dig and dig and dig as deep as they can to find any skeletons in your closet that you thought were hidden, and expose them to the public to try to tear you down, and show everybody that you’re a piece of crap as a human. And that’s exactly what happened with Graham Platner. Unfortunately, Graham Platner had a lot of skeletons in his closet that he thought that he had hidden very well. Unfortunately, he did not hide them far enough. And let me backtrack, okay? So one of the first what people call red flags that came out was that he had.

[5:13] People were worried about his military service and that he had been a mercenary, used his knowledge and skill as, a soldier in the employ of some company and got paid for it. And of course, we all know some of the, some of the really nasty stuff that places like Blackwater and some other, uh, of the security companies, security quote unquote did in Iraq and Afghanistan. And, you know, so that, that was one. The other, another red flag that came up early was that he had a, um, Nazi tattoo on his chest. It was a death head from for those students of history might know the death head was a symbol of the SS, the, elite Nazi soldiers. And so Graham apologized for the tattoo. He claimed that he did not know that it was a Nazi symbol. Dubiously said that he did not know.

[6:26] It didn’t bother me because I, like I said, I’m a student of history. And I used to be enthralled with military stuff and war. And I could see myself, if I had been a soldier, getting a death head because that would show, look how tough I am. There is no evidence beyond that tattoo that he had been anti-Semitic or expressed any Nazi ideology at all, ever.

[6:58] And so that kind of blew over. Then people brought up his old Reddit posts where he said that, women complain about being raped or something and he wished that he could fight Indians and stuff like that. And then we had an article from the New York Times that a bunch of former girlfriends said that he was a terrible boyfriend. Including one story, one experience from a woman who also happened to be a Republican operative who had worked for the Heritage Foundation, who had supported the candidacy, the judge candidacy of Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, who was also known to have assaulted women. And so that was kind of ironic. Well, we come to find out that Platner explained some of his poor behavior, due to heavy drinking related to his war experiences, his trauma in the war, in fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, his PTSD.

[8:09] And he had received treatment for that and eventually was able to work through that to where he stopped doing that, stopped the heavy drinking and tried to be a better person to women in his life. Then it comes out that he cheated on his wife with several women. Again, that was during his very bad period of his trying to deal with his trauma from battle.

[8:36] To me, that was all reasonable because I lived with somebody who experienced PTSD on a regular basis, and I know there can be triggering things, and they can turn on a dime. They could be acting normal, not normal, but typical, one moment, and the next minute, they’re just off the reservation, as it were. They just need, and then you have to talk them down and stuff like that. I know all about that part. So that, to me, that seemed reasonable. The lady from the Heritage Foundation that supported Kavanaugh, who had the actual story about being assaulted, that was a problem.

[9:19] But it was hard to know if it was actually true. And I’m not saying bitch be lying. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m not saying I believed her story. My question was, why was she coming forward now when she’s known that Graham was running for Senate for months and months and months? Why was she only coming together now, right before the primary? And this story broke right before the primary. And so not only can it be true that Graham Platner could be a terrible human being, but it also could be true that his opponents could not defeat his politics, so they decided to tear him down as a human being.

[10:11] Those two things can be true at the same time. And so I believed that lady. I believed her story. It was bad.

[10:23] But the rest of the stories in the New York Times that they provided were not as bad as that. So maybe it was just a one-time thing. Well, some people are like, well, if it’s a one-time thing, that’s it. You’re disqualified. Okay. You know, that’s fine. If you want to make if you’re a voter and you want to make that decision, make that decision. Me, I don’t think that that’s the case. I don’t think it’s just one and done.

[10:53] It shouldn’t be. OK. I mean, somebody robs a bank and then 20 years later wants to run for city council. Are they disqualified because they committed a crime? 20 years ago, who knows? You know, I think that’s a situational thing, a situational thing you have to look at. You know, is he terrible to women now? You know, and so I could look, not look past it, but it’s like, you know, he’s going to get tore up about that. The Republicans are going to be so hypocritical about it. You know, they elected a pedophile protecting president who was actually sued for sexually assaulting a woman and has to pay her $5 million. He was convicted of 34 felony counts for his business practices in a federal court, and they still elected him president. Why does Graham Platner have to go home? And I get it. It’s the Democrats. It’s people that supposedly have better moral standards than their candidates, sometimes.

[11:59] But so I so eventually then the website Politico comes out with the story of another woman who had a credible story that she had been raped. And it just so happened that that woman was also interviewed by The New York Times, but she didn’t tell the full story when she was interviewed by The Times because she liked Graham Platner’s politics and she didn’t want to be the one to tear him down. She didn’t want, because she saw what happened, and eventually the reason why she came forward is because she saw what happened to that Republican lady that spoke out, and told that she was lying and that she was only doing it for money. And I don’t think that that’s true, but I do think that she did come forward because she was a Republican rather than that she was doing the right thing. I think that she was doing something for her own agenda, but it just happened to be the right thing. Anyway, so that story, the political story came out, and unfortunately, that did it.

[13:17] I knew then that Platner was going to have to quit because you just can’t get past that. You can’t get past rape. You just cannot. You just cannot get past it. No matter how good he has lived his life since supposedly that event happened in 2021.

[13:38] For a candidate. And then the fact that and the other factor, too, was that he went on some prominent TV political shows, in particular, Chris Hayes’ show on MS Now and said after the New York Times article that there was nothing else. Coming out, there would be no other stories coming out about him, that everything bad that had ever happened to him had already been exposed. And then unfortunately that was not the not the case so he lied about that and then he lied about knowing about the uh nazi tattoo being a nazi tattoo.

[14:21] So that caught that that to me is what caused me not to support him any longer, was the fact that the whole entire collection of stuff, is what did it and especially because he’s going to get tore up during the election, because that’s all they’re going to talk about. They’re not going to talk about his policies. Nobody’s going to know his policies in the political advertisements. All they’re going to know is Susan Collins is going to hit him constantly with, he’s a rapist, he’s a rapist, he’s a rapist, he’s a rapist. That’s all they’re going to say. They’re not going to talk about the needs and desires of the citizens of Maine.

[15:08] And so it’s sad. It’s sad that somebody get that in politics, if they can’t beat your politics, that they tear you down as a person. But it’s also sad that if you’ve had all these skeletons in your closet, that you thought that you could get away with it and run as a candidate in today’s political environment, with literally billions of dollars being spent on opposition research and trying to get people and all these AI fake commercials and things like that. You know, the fact that Platner thought that he could get away with it is disappointing at the most. So that’s what I wanted to say about Graham Platner, that it’s good that he did withdraw. And so the Democratic Party in Maine is going to be able to choose somebody to replace him on the ballot, which is good for the people of Maine.

[16:11] Because it’s not going to be the situation where he just kind of rode the wave until election day and then lost the seat, or if he won, then having to resign later on. Because usually the Democrats, they make their people that get in trouble resign. Like Eric Saloel, Al Franken. Al Franken got in trouble because a picture of him kissing somebody without consent came out, And they forced him to resign. He was a sitting senator. You know, you never see that happen in the Republican Party. Never see it. That’s one of the reasons why I refuse to vote for Republicans. It’s because they have no morals at all.

[16:56] Now, what I wanted to talk about, though, in relations to that Graham Platner thing was that Rebecca Watson, who I admire and I follow on YouTube, on her podcast, she had a video up, I just saw it today, on the whole Graham Platner thing. Now, what bothered me about her video isn’t so much what she was saying about Platner and how all, the thing that these prominent progressives just didn’t see it or didn’t didn’t know it. And now they have to backtrack. And I mean, rightfully so, she took them to the woodshed, like Sam Seder, Emma Vaglin, and some of the other people I’ve never heard of before, took them to the woodshed for supporting Graham Platner. The only thing I disagree with that.

[17:58] Is one, Rebecca in her video totally dismisses the fact, of Platner’s trauma PTSD as a factor in his behavior before 2021. And some of the things that happened with some of these people. And I think that’s why the New York Times, when they did their story, They made him seem like a bad boyfriend rather than a bad rapist or sexual assaulter because of his trauma. And it disappointed me that she just didn’t even talk about it, didn’t even mention it. That played a part into people.

[18:45] Not giving him a pass, but rationalizing the fact that he had the Nazi tattoo and that he was a heavy drinker and he treated women badly and that he cheated on his wife. That was all related to his trauma, his PTSD.

[19:03] The other thing that bothered me about Rebecca’s video, and this bothers me, quite a bit about some people on the left, is basically if you make a mistake, you are dead. You might as well just quit the business, go hide in the hole, and never be seen again. Never say anything again. And I don’t agree. I believe, you know, and again, that’s because she is dismissing Graham Platner’s mistakes, totally dismissing him, that he didn’t make any mistakes. That’s basically what she, it’s not implying or inferring, but that’s how it turns out. And so then you infer that onto these podcasters like Sam Seder and Emma Vaglin, and say, well, they made a mistake. They suck. And it’s like, no, people make mistakes. I made mistakes. I supported Graham Platner up until the political. And the only reason why I supported Graham Platner up to that point wasn’t because of progressive podcasters saying the bitch be lying.

[20:17] I looked at the evidence. I looked at all the information I had, and I made that decision based on that information that I had. That information that I had was incomplete. I know that now. So that’s why I fully say I made a mistake in supporting Graham Platner big time. It turns out. It turns out I was wrong. But I am not a mind reader. I can’t, I don’t have a crazy eight ball and I can’t shake it up and say, is Graham Platner a douchebag? And it comes up all, all the things say yes. And then I say, oh, I don’t support it. I don’t do that. All I can do, especially because I don’t, I am not privy to any additional information. And the way they were trickling this stuff out, you know, that’s the thing. Usually this stuff doesn’t just trickle out. Somebody starts running for office and all the opposition research, because that’s one of the things that every candidate does. Every candidate does opposition research on your opponent.

[21:32] They pull their financials. If they’re already in office, they pull your finance forms from your elections and everything. And they go through it with a fine-tooth comb and they make hay out of whatever mistakes that they find or anything that looks hinky, even if it’s not hinky. I’ll give you an example. Dr. Amy Acton is running against Vivek Ramaswamy here in Ohio. Well, one of the things that came out of the opposition research was an audio, recording from a podcast from, I believe it was 2021, where Ram Swamy is talking about requiring mandatory vaccinations and biomarkers in the vaccine so we know who’s vaccinated and who’s not, and segregating people who have been vaccinated so that those that have been vaccinated can leave their house and go about their business in a normal way. And so people are like, well, whatever. Well, see, the thing is, he’s been running, the Republicans and him specifically, have been running on complaining about Dr. Acton being the lockout queen from the pandemic when she served as the head of the Ohio Department of Health.

[22:55] So see, that’s kind of opposition research dinging the candidate for hypocrisy, an alleged hypocrisy, because, well, to me it is hypocrisy. But the thing is, if that audio recording hadn’t come out, I wouldn’t have that information. And if somebody said, well, Ram Swami said this, I’d be like, prove it.

[23:21] And if I didn’t have the information, then I would just not pay attention to that. And so that’s where I think that Rebecca could have done a much shorter video on this topic and just said, I told you so, and just left it at that. Because she really rakes those progressive podcasters over the coal, and they were wrong. I get it. They were wrong. They didn’t believe the Republican lady. I believe the Republican lady. I just didn’t think that it was disqualifying because it happened years ago and he had this trauma. And see, she dismissed his trauma. And I don’t think that’s right either.

[24:14] And I just don’t agree with political people thinking, well, I knew this months ago. You should have known it, too. And that’s not the case. That’s not how real people work. We can only make decisions based on the information that we have. And it has to be credible, competent, truthful information in order to make decisions, especially around politics. Now, I will recommend that you go watch the video that Rebecca put up, because she does make some very valid points about this whole issue, this whole situation. But I also want people to know that in the future, if somebody acts like, I just don’t want you to think that all men automatically, if they’re running for office, are douchebags. You know, I don’t want you to think that every person that’s running for office is a liar.

[25:19] You know, even if you’ve been lied to previously, you still need to give people the benefit of the doubt. Until you get more information, you’re able to then change your opinion. That’s how politics works. That’s how being a human works. And unfortunately, I’m disappointed that that didn’t work with Rebecca in her video. And I’m sure that it wasn’t her intent to do that. But like I said, she did make some good points. So I’ll throw the link to her video up. And that’s basically all that I’m going to say about Graham Platner, formerly the Democratic nominee for Senate in the state of Maine. For more information on the topics in this episode and the links used, visit secularleft.us.

[26:33] We have another story to talk about from Maine that does not involve Graham Platner. Back in 2022, a U.S. Supreme Court case called Carson v. Macon, basically allowed religious schools to receive public tax dollars. They’ve always allowed students who lived in towns that did not have public schools at their grade level to attend approved private schools at the state’s expense, requiring towns to pay a student’s tuition up to a certain amount. And religious schools were excluded from that program from 1981 until this court case in 2022, that eliminating the program to non-sectarian schools violated the First Amendment’s religious liberty protections. So what the state of Maine did is they amended their Human Rights Act to explicitly prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity and religion in education. It also clarified that an exemption allowing religious schools to discriminate, based on sexual orientation only applied to those that weren’t receiving public funds.

[27:52] And so basically what they did was, instead of excluding religious schools from the funding, all religious schools, what they did instead was that they predicated this money based on them not discriminating. So in order for them to get this tax money, they would have to abide by the non-discrimination. So, of course, the religious schools filed a lawsuit.

[28:24] St. Dominic Academy, which is Catholic, and Crosspoint Church, which is evangelical, challenged these changes in district court in 2023, arguing that the state’s anti-discrimination rules were not neutral toward religion, and violated their First Amendment rights to create school policies based on religious identity. Both schools described the amendments to the Maine Human Rights Act as a poison pill meant to exclude religious schools from receiving public dollars in anticipation of that previous court case. Crosspoint argued that following the Maine Human Rights Act would force Bangor Christian schools to admit students with sexual orientations, gender identities, or religious views inconsistent with its central religious tenets. And that the school would then need to expel these students if they did not follow the school’s policies on these issues. So basically what they’re saying is that they have a policy in their school that you can’t be gay. So if they have to admit gay students, then they’ll have to expel them because they’re violating their policy.

[29:33] The federal district court ruled that private religious schools that receive public funds must follow state laws that prohibit discrimination based on gender identity, sexual orientation, or religion. The ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston came after two schools, the St. Dominic’s and Bangar Christian Schools, asked for exemptions from the Human Rights Act so they wouldn’t be required to enforce policies that contradicted their religious beliefs, such as admitting students who were openly gay or transgender, for instance, or requiring teachers to use students’ preferred pronouns. Now, the only thing in this case that the circuit court agreed with the schools was in the employment part. They did rule that the schools could discriminate in employment so that they would only employ teachers and administrators who abide by their religious teachings. But if you are having students, if you’re allowing students into your school and you’re accepting tax dollars, you cannot discriminate against them. And see, this is a big thing about school vouchers. This is one of the big arguments against school vouchers, especially that what we have here in Ohio, is that private schools, private religious schools can pick their students. Right.

[31:02] In public schools, public schools have to take everybody. They have to take anybody that shows up and wants to go to school. They’re required by law to accept everybody. But private schools are not. And so how people don’t see this as a problem, I don’t know. Because if you’re a private school, even if it’s a religious school, and you’re taking tax dollars, you should have to abide by the same rules and regulations that public schools have to go by. Even though you’re not a public school, even though you’re privately run, if you’re taking state tax dollars, if the state is sending you a check, you should have to follow the exact same rules as a public school. And so far, at least in this instance, the federal court said, yes, that’s true. You have to follow the same rules.

[32:01] And so people are saying, well, how is that different than the previous court case about the thing? Well, the previous court case, public schools, all private religious schools were excluded from that program. In this case, the way that they changed the law was they applied the rules to all schools. See? Different. It’s different. And if it just so happens that these rules contradict a religious school, they have a choice now. They have a choice not to accept public tax dollars. Anyway, so I just thought that that was a good story to let everybody know about. We’ll keep an eye on it because it’s probably certain that this will probably end up in the U.S. Supreme Court eventually.

[33:01] As many of you know out there, I have been covering the rise of LifeWise Academy. That is the religious group funded by massive donations from the right-wing, Bible evangelical parts of Republican Party apparatus. And what they’ve been doing, in case you don’t know, is they go into a school district and they demand to have release time, religious instruction or Bible class, Bible school, during a school day. And what they do is they transport kids off of school property to a nearby location, usually a church, a sponsoring church, and they have Bible class, a short Bible class, and then they are bussed or walked back to the public school. And this is an issue that I’ve been keeping track of for several years now, and I.

[34:10] One of the groups that I work with is called Respect Public Schools, and they’re located at respectpublicschools.com. And they had a post up yesterday on their Facebook page, and it’s not on their website yet, but I’ll have the link to the Facebook page. And basically, this is what it says. As it says, LifeWise Academy has missed its goal of 100,000 students served in the 2025-2026 school year by 35,000. The goal of 1,000 schools by 2026 has been reached, but the number of students enrolling in the program has been much lower than LifeWise has anticipated. A press release by LifeWise from August 18, 2025 states that LifeWise will reach 100,000 in the school year. The June 2026 press kit from LifeWise shows just under 65,000 students are enrolled.

[35:11] LifeWise has been lobbying states to pressure school districts into coordinating with LifeWise, but interest in the program among families of students has been declining. The more the public learns about LifeWise, the fewer families are choosing to enroll. And that’s the important thing to know, that they have the juice, they have the influence to get these laws passed, to force schools to give them, time during the day. But it is actually servicing fewer students than what they have led people to believe. And short of forcing kids to go, which I’m sure that’s probably something they’re going to try to work out eventually, you know, because the big thing, the big argument that they make is that it’s parental choice. But barring that, it’s usually only about, maybe 25, 30 percent of the student population even consider going to LifeWise. So you’re talking very, very small amounts. I know there’s been some anecdotal reports from.

[36:33] Different school districts here in Ohio where their program has been reduced because less people want to join. There’s one school district where they shut down completely because they didn’t have enough people. And the reason why they end up shutting down is because it costs money to have these programs and these local groups have to raise the money to fund it. They have to pay the teacher, the insurance. Sometimes they have to pay the rent for the venue.

[37:10] And then they have to kick back some to LifeWise headquarters. You know, they can’t buy more $2 million headquarter buildings unless they get some of that money kicked back to them. So I was pretty pleased with this article and, you know, their goal was 100,000 and they missed it by 35,000. And that’s a significant amount, especially because they have a thousand schools already. But see, that’s the thing. You know, they could be in a lot of school districts, but to actually have an active program, that takes more work and more effort. And it’s good to know that it is not going as well as lifewise hoped. Do you enjoy this podcast? What if I told you there is a companion newsletter available? Secular Left Nuggets has written posts that either complement a current podcast episode or highlight a topic that may or may not be turned into a future podcast segment. Subscribe to Secular Left Nuggets at secularleft.substack.com and it is totally free.

[38:25] I will forgive you if you think that you just woke up and it’s the 1970s again because the, authoritarian Trump administration and their sycophants at Fox News and in other places have latched on to the fact that the democratic socialists are making inroads into elections in some areas, such as we saw in the city of New York and some other places. The mayor’s race in Washington, D.C. Is probably going to be won by a democratic socialist. So they’ve been equating wrongly democratic socialists and communists.

[39:09] And it’s wrong for many, many, many reasons. But we’ll get into that here in a second. But what I wanted to do is I wanted to play a clip of some audio of some various talking heads talking about democratic socialists and communism. And I just want you to hear this is just taken from the last several weeks since the New York congressional primaries. And you’ll see what what what people are thinking or not what people are thinking, but what the Fox News heads and and Trump are thinking. So here’s the audio clip. Democrats finally got their pervy platiner off their back, but he’s the least of their worries. Ranks of commie radicals worse than nipple Nazi are mobilizing across the country, positioning for their takeover. This commie doc without a medical license is running for Senate in Michigan, and he’s already hard at work indoctrinating your kids. My whole name is Abdurrahman Mohamed Singh.

[40:16] Are you a doctor? Am I a doctor? Depends on who you talk to on the internet. Billionaires don’t want to spend.

[40:23] Money because they might be greedy and they weren’t raised well. I think it’s important that if you have something that you should imagine imagine you guys had a billion cupcakes Imagine that you imagine a billion cupcakes. Do you think you could eat all billion cupcakes by yourself? Oh, It would give you a really bad stomachache, right? Right. Yeah. Keep in mind, too, it’s going to be hot. It’s going to be so hot. And the president’s going to give a speech. He says, it’s not going to bother me. It’s going to be hot. 107 degrees. I’m going to give a speech for a second. He said, I’m going to give a very long speech. Right. Yeah. We’re like, no, please don’t. Not too long. Right. Yeah, I know. Mayor Mom Donnie also weighed in on the heat. He has a recommendation for us. Oh, my gosh. It’s unbelievable. Well, we’ve had blackouts here in New York, and I’ve lived through one of those where the power goes out because the grid can’t handle it all. Yes. And so Mom Donnie was roasted online because he told New Yorkers to set their air conditioners to 78 degrees. This is what he wrote in part on X. That’s when you put it on. Yeah. New York, it’s hot out there and the power grid is working overtime to keep us cool. Set your AC to 78 degrees. Turn off lights, electronics you’re not using and unplug what you can. Let’s ease demand and get through the heat together. Now he’s being roasted. By the way, when it’s 78 degrees, that’s where you usually put the AC on, but not in communist New York City. Dave Portnoy weighed in. He’ll be a guest a little bit later on. He goes, 78 degrees. Welcome to communism, people. Hope you enjoy it.

[41:48] You got one user said, do you feel the warmth of the collectivism yet? And then you have Jack Mack who writes, I have texted all my coworkers who voted for Zora Mamdani to send me a photo of their AC set at 78 degrees. I don’t think he was joking, though. He’s not joking. He’s not joking at all. I think we should take him seriously. This is just step one of little commie Mandami. He also is supposed to be counter-programming because he’s gonna give his own 4th of July speech. I guarantee you it’s not gonna be a pro-American speech. As long as Times Square’s on, I’m keeping my AC on. Of course.

[42:24] Yet as we approach this magnificent anniversary, we see our American identity under a renewed attack a generation after we fought and won the Cold War against the menace of communism. There is now a resurgence of the communist menace in our land, including from newcomers to our country who embrace ideas totally opposed to, our way of life and our great success. These are not mere political disagreements like differences over taxes or regulations. Communism is a mortal threat to American liberty. It is the greatest threat to our country, including World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor, or even 9-11. We’re not going to let this happen to us. Believe me, we’re not letting it happen.

[43:18] Because communism is the enemy of free people everywhere, everywhere in the world. Never works. It’s the enemy of the Constitution. Above all, it’s the enemy of July 4th, 1776. It is the enemy indeed. Even while the radicals and extremists attack our incredible history at every turn, they are silent on the miserable history of communism itself because it never worked. Thousands of years, if you look at it under different names, under somewhat different ideologies and systems. That system has led to more death and destruction than any system ever tried. It killed 100 million people just in the last century alone.

[44:05] Communism is the exact opposite of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It’s death, tyranny, and the pursuit of evil. The godless communist morality states that anything is justified to bring about inhuman visions and to really propose what’s good. They don’t want good. They don’t love God, and they don’t want God. They don’t love religion, and they don’t want religion, and they won’t have it. But we will not let them win. They have no chance against us. The DSA, the Democrat Socialists of America? Okay, here’s just a sample of what they’re about. Abolish the electoral college, replace the two-party system with a multi-party democracy. Implement proportional representation and rank choice voting in all elections. Establish public ownership of the largest corporations and essential industries to ensure democratic control and accountability to the people. End all military and economic aid to Israel. Let me start with you. I mean, do you see this as a major shift for the Democratic Party?

[45:10] Well, first of all, they’re not Democrats, right? They’re socialists, and they’re essentially parasites. They’ve decided that they cannot win on their own by creating their own party, so they are going to latch on to the Democratic Party, feed off of it with the overall goal of taking it over and killing it. And so that’s what the DSA is doing. They started this back in 2016 with Bernie versus Hillary. AOC then gets elected in 2018. You see the introduction of the squad and what’s been happening since then. And so this year, they really do feel like it’s their big opportunity. They are going for broke. And you don’t see them trying to win purple seats or red seats. You see them trying to pick off Democrats in safe blue seats. One of the candidates that you just had up on the screen is actually going against the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Adriano Espat, 100 percent voting record with the Democratic Party. But he is not a socialist. He’s not an anti-Semite. He believes in public safety. He believes in opportunity and an innovation in capitalism. And for that, they are trying to off him. And so, yes, it’s a terrible thing for the Democratic Party. And if they are successful in taking over, then I think it’s going to set the party back decades.

[46:21] All right. Well, that last clip was Melissa DeRosa, and she last served as Andrew, Cuomo, who was a top Democrat in New York. He had run against Mondami for the mayor of New York. Andrew Cuomo was also the Democrat that was forced to resign as governor of New York because of some sexual harassment claims that were found to affect his office. But yeah, so that was Melissa DeRosa calling Democratic socialists a parasite, wanting to latch on to the Democratic Party and suck its blood dry and then kill it. Again, that’s a Democrat saying that. That wasn’t a Fox News head. But there’s a lot of establishment Democrats that talk about that, talk about it that way. James Carville, who should be retired or maybe passed on by now, has also been saying that Democratic socialists aren’t Democrats. And the thing that they all forget, the Fox News people and establishment Dems, forget, is that these are people that won elections. They had voters vote for them. They were up front. They weren’t hiding the fact that they were Democratic Socialists.

[47:51] It’s like the reason why they won those elections is because of their politics, because of their ideas and their plans, not because they were democratic socialists. It has nothing to do with communism. And the other reason why it has nothing to do with communism is because communism, as we know it, is when the proletariat rises up against the capitalists and take over by revolution. That’s what all good communists think, is that there’s supposed to be a revolution. Democratic socialists want to change the system, but they want to do it within the democratic structure that already exists. Because we are nominally a democratic country with a constitution, and we don’t have a communistic dictator. We have authoritarian dictator Trump. And so it’s it’s kind of ironic that he’s complaining about communism. But, you know, that comes from them. So if you don’t believe me, all you have to do is go to the Democratic Socialists of America’s website. It’s dsausa.org. And it says, what is democratic socialism? Pretty easy page to find. Pretty short statement, mission statement. And I’ll read it to you in full.

[49:19] Capitalism is a system designed by the owning class to exploit the rest of us for their own profit. We must replace it with democratic socialism, a system where ordinary people have a real voice in our workplace, neighborhoods, and society. We believe there are many avenues that feed into the democratic road to socialism. Our vision pushes further than historic social democracy and leaves behind authoritarian visions of socialism in the dustbin of history. We want a democracy that creates space for us all to flourish, not just survive, and answers the fundamental questions of our lives with the input of all. We want to collectively own the key economic drivers that dominate our lives, such as energy, production, and transportation. We want the multiracial working class united in solidarity instead of divided by fear. We want to win radical reforms, radical in quotation marks, like single-payer Medicare for all, defunding the police, refunding communities, the Green New Deal, and more as a transition to a freer, more just life. We want a democracy powered by everyday people. The capitalist class tells us we are powerless, but together we can take back control.

[50:43] And I don’t know any American who would disagree with any of that. That’s why that video bit that I played of Mike Johnson telling what the DSA believes was so comical. Because it’s like, why are you telling us all the good stuff? Why would somebody be against that? Why would you be against freedom? Why would you be against equality in economics? Nobody should be.

[51:16] It doesn’t take communism to think that. Socialism is just fine. And so that’s the thing is these guys, these authoritarian dickheads, they can’t beat the politics. So what they’re trying to do is tear down the politicians. And, you know, it’s not clear as day is when they complain about the one candidate for Senate for Michigan explaining to school children that they need to share. I learned that I needed to learn how to share when I was in preschool, you know, 50 years ago. You know, that’s a common trait. Cutting back your AC to 78, that’s not turning off your AC. That’s just turning it up so that it doesn’t run all the time. I’ve done that currently. When we had our major heat wave in our area where it was up to 100 degrees during the day, my thermostat was set at 78. And yes, it was a bit humid. It was a bit stuffy, but it was okay. It wasn’t 100 degrees, so I survived. And that also helped with the cutting back on the grid on the electric demand.

[52:44] You know, and they do this. The Republicans do this all the time. They complain about having to self-sacrifice. They hate self-sacrifice. You know, I remember when, during President Obama’s administration, they worked out, particularly the First Lady Michelle, had a program about feeding kids better food in school lunches because the school lunches were had too much processed food, too much salt, too much sugar. And the right wing just lost their minds. And so you had these videos on TikTok and YouTube of kids throwing away their meals because they said it tasted horrible because it was good, good food. It wasn’t full of sugar and salt. So once the Maha people got involved and Robert Kennedy Jr. And his brain worm got involved, what are they telling people? Cut back on the processed food, the sugar and the salt. And everybody loves it. And they’re like, yes, let’s make America healthy again.

[53:56] I know it gets exhausting sometimes. It really does. But just I wanted to do this segment just to let you know that you’re going to be hearing a lot about communism, probably up through November.

[54:08] And you’re going to see a lot of establishment Dems doing the same thing, calling the Democratic Socialists names. And they’re not a very powerful block. The DSA is not a powerful block. They had some wins in New York City and some other areas, but a majority of Democrats are not Democratic Socialists. And all I’m saying is, if you don’t consider yourself a democratic socialist, just have an open mind, and take a look at what the candidate, the DSA candidate, is actually proposing, and base your vote on what they’re proposing. So if they’re supporting Medicare for all and you vote against them because you think they’re communists, you’re actually voting against them. You’re voting against Medicare for all, and that’s hurting yourself. So just keep an eye out for that information. And just know that if it’s coming from the Trump administration, that 99.9% of the time, it’s a total fabrication.

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