In 2023 America, the Democratic Party – its agendas, its core values, and its audacious and often ruthless methods – are virtually indistinguishable from those of modern-day communists. Compare the Communist Party USA’s website (CPUSA.org) with the Democratic National Committee’s website (Democrats.org) and try to discern any truly substantive difference. Since the Communist Party USA was long funded by the Soviet Union and traditionally very pro-Moscow, one might expect to encounter on its website classic party slogans like “Workers of the world, unite!” alongside photos of Marx, Lenin, and other famous communists. Instead, the CPUSA’s No. 1 top-of-the-page issue is, believe it or not – as the site’s screaming headline declares it – “TRANS RIGHTS.”

“The demonization of transgender people in the United States is today a focal point of the far right’s campaign for political and economic domination,” CPUSA’s feature story begins, going on to condemn the “fascist” Republican Party for its “oppression of people of color, immigrants, women, and LGBTQ people.”

In fact, bemoans the article:

The year 2021 saw a record number of anti-trans legislative proposals put forward by Republicans and Evangelical Christian legislators across the country. No fewer than 110 bills in at least 37 states were filed. From Hawaii to Florida, Texas to Maine, Republicans went on a full-court press to target trans people – especially trans female student athletes. …

Rousing his base with his usual recipe of hatred, former White House occupant Donald Trump has eagerly inserted himself into the rush to villainize trans people and their supporters as well, claiming, “Joe Biden and the Democrats are pushing policies that would destroy women’s sports.” Like most Republicans, he never utters the actual word transgender, for that would acknowledge the reality of trans persons.

Big question: How did card-carrying communists – who for generations have been obsessed with the “evil capitalist oppressors” exploiting and abusing the “working class” – mysteriously become preoccupied instead with insane “woke” gender ideology? Why is today’s Communist Party USA obsessed, as are today’s Democrats, with the radical LGBT agenda and the demonization of everyone – especially Christians – who stand in opposition to it? Even more fundamentally, what do seriously mentally ill men who insist they are women and who destroy women’s athletics have to do with communism?

Investigative journalist and researcher Christopher Rufo illuminates the stunning transformation of communism from the Cold War era to today in “The New Face of Marxism.”

Essentially, explains Rufo, while Soviet, Chinese, and other 20th-century versions of communism were based on the concept of class struggle between the downtrodden working class and capitalist overlords, America’s huge and largely contented middle class, with its unparalleled freedom and economic stability, made the “old face” of Marxism unworkable here. Thus, a new oppression paradigm for Marxism in America had to be established, namely race – the “oppressed” comprising all “people of color,” and the “oppressors” being all white people.

It was natural, then, for homosexuals and transsexuals to jump onto the same “oppressed minority” bandwagon. After all, the powerful and well-financed LGBT movement strategically modeled itself after the successful 1960s civil rights movement, casting its members as part of an aggrieved, long-victimized minority. Plus, by positioning itself as one more unjustly “marginalized community,” like African Americans, the LGBT movement offered an additional benefit to Marxist revolutionaries: It would serve as a weapon specifically targeting Christianity – atheistic communism’s greatest enemy – since genuine Christians oppose homosexual behavior as biblically forbidden (along with adultery and other sexual sin), and could thus be portrayed as bigots and anti-LGBT “haters.”

It only followed, then, that illegal aliens (recently re-christened “undocumented immigrants”) would become yet another “oppressed minority” for today’s communists – and Democrats – to defend, recruit and weaponize as part of America’s new Marxist coalition.

Since today’s communists are obsessed with embedding their ideology and agenda deeply into the next generation, straight-up brainwashing is occurring daily in public school classrooms across America, as Rufo explains:

They’re implementing critical race theory in K-12 education, for example, dividing children by race to two sides of the room, telling children of European descent: “You should feel guilt. You should feel shame. You should feel responsible for historical crimes committed by people who look like you.” And telling the other side of the room: “You should feel anger. You should feel rage, you should feel a spirit of vengeance for the crimes perpetrated against people who looked like you in the past, by people who looked like your classmates on the other side of the room.”

In this way, many of the essential emotions and attitudes for embracing Marxism/communism – including envy, hatred of society’s “oppressor” class, a sense of personal grievance, a feeling of moral righteousness as a member of a persecuted “victim” class, and an abiding desire for revenge – are being implanted in the next generation of Americans.

‘The gospel of envy’

Rufo’s explanation of the modern-day neo-communist substitution of racial grievance and sexual and gender “minorities” for the traditional “oppressed workers” is accurate, but also raises major questions.

As a direct result of the ‘60s civil rights movement, memorably punctuated by Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech, the great American middle class essentially changed its mind about racial segregation, and since the ’64 Civil Rights Act, America has been hands-down the least racist nation in the world. Likewise, illegal aliens – who have broken the law to enter and live in the U.S. illegally – are obviously not a legitimate “oppressed minority.” Nor are homosexuals, who are protected by the law in virtually every way, and who enjoy a higher average income than the general population.

So, the American Marxist narrative is a Big Lie.

But there’s more. If communism’s “oppression” paradigm can change so dramatically – from “workers versus capitalists” to “people of one race versus those of another race” to “people identifying as homosexual or transgender versus everyone holding to traditional biblical moral values” – all wildly different pretexts for rebellion and revolution – the implication is that communism/Marxism never was about any specific grievance or injustice in the first place.

The great Winston Churchill offered a giant clue to this mystery when he referred to socialism as “the gospel of envy.” His insightful description acknowledges Marxism to be the religion it truly is – a religion rooted in hatred and discontent, in envy and rebellion, in coveting what others have and despising them for having it. Small wonder Marxism/communism is atheistic.

Marx himself notoriously referred to religion as “the opium of the people” (often mistranslated as “the opiate of the masses”). Yet, in keeping with the far left’s reflexive habit of accusing others of the very evils of which they themselves are guilty, Marx ironically created the ultimate false religion – which has served as the “opium” of hundreds of millions of people ever since.

So, even though in a very real sense, Marxism/communism is a religion, albeit a false and toxic one, the top leaders – the religion’s “high priests” – don’t really believe in it. Though revered as a great leader who believed in the Marxist promise of the brotherhood of man, Vladimir Lenin was a power-obsessed psychopath who loathed God, morality, the nuclear family, and everything genuinely good and virtuous. Here’s a revealing quote from Lenin:

Every religious idea, every idea of God, even flirting with the idea of God, is unutterable vileness … of the most dangerous kind, contagion of the most abominable kind. Millions of sins, filthy deeds, acts of violence, and physical contagions … are far less dangerous than the subtle, spiritual idea of God.

Same story as Stalin, who deliberately starved to death millions of men, women, and children by blockading Ukraine’s borders and preventing any food from entering the starving nation. Likewise, the “great communist leader” of China, Mao Zedong, whom top Biden adviser Anita Dunn once said on camera she reveres as one of her “favorite political philosophers,” has the distinction of having caused far more human deaths – between 40 and 80 million – than any other person in world history, far more than Hitler.

Needless to say, these were not people who believed in “equality” and “the brotherhood of man.”

In the end, the truth emerges: Marxism (and its implementation, communism) constitutes a malevolent religion. And although it has captivated untold millions, and murdered millions more, its leaders don’t believe in it and never have. It’s all a giant pretense, so they can attain and increase their own personal power, glory, wealth, and privilege.

George Orwell arrived at this conclusion in his classic novel “Animal Farm,” when at the end of the story, the pigs emerge as the new oppressors of all the other farm animals, replacing the original farmer “oppressor.” When confronted with the religious mantra – “All animals are equal” – which they had long espoused while pretending to side with the rabble, now the ruling pigs with a straight face offered a slightly reworded version: “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.”

Finally, here’s how respected historian Victor Davis Hanson recently sized up America’s communist revolution: “The left is waging a full-fledged cultural revolution against traditional America. And the Maoist results are often as absurd as they are terrifying.”

Likewise, Donald Trump, in his inimitable way, aptly captured the current dynamic while campaigning recently in Michigan. Allowing that the current chaos isn’t really all Biden’s fault – because “he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing” – Trump added that “crooked Joe” is “surrounded by radical-left Marxists and crazy people.”