OPINION:
You’d think that with the blockbuster success of Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey,” the concept of the Trojan Horse would be as fresh as ever.
But tell that to the Democrats. They are busy pulling a communist/Islamist/anti-Semitic version of the Greeks’ trick wooden pony right into their party.
After Abdul El-Sayed’s victory in the U.S. Senate primary in Michigan, the Washington Post had this lead headline: “Win reveals liberal divide.”
Liberal? This assumes that each side in the Michigan race was just a different version of a particular political philosophy on the center left. The article itself states that the party establishment “El-Sayed bested fears that the Bernie Sanders-backed former public health official is too liberal for the purple state.” Again, “liberal?”
This is either wishful thinking or the kind of media manipulation that helped birth the term “fake news.”
Mr. El-Sayed is a socialist, Islamist and antisemite who campaigned with Hasan Piker, an online “influencer” who has been warmly embraced by New York communist/Islamist Mayor Zohran Mamdani and other Democrats.
Mr. Piker blamed America for 9/11 and downplayed the sexual terror inflicted by Hamas on Israeli women and girls during the Oct. 7, 2023, invasion, saying, it “doesn’t matter if f——— rapes happened on October 7. It doesn’t change the dynamic for me.”
He also said that Hamas is “a thousand times better than the fascist settler colonial apartheid state,” referring to Israel.
In an older video clip, he shared what he would like to see done to landlords who don’t rent out vacant property: “Yeah kill them, murder those motherf-ers in the street, let the streets soak in their f-ing red capitalist blood.”
Since Mr. Piker allegedly has millions of online followers, Democrats are loath to dissociate themselves from him. In fact, he has appeared at campaign events with U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, Michigan Democrat; U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, Pennsylvania Democrat; Francesca Hong, a Wisconsin Assembly member running for governor, and Darializa Avila Chevalier, who beat Rep. Adriano Espaillat, chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, in a June Democratic primary for New York’s 13th Congressional District.
Ms. Hong is a Democratic socialist who called for canceling Thanksgiving because it is “colonialist,” that old white people caused her “anxiety,” and said the police should be abolished.
Ms. Chavalier, a Muslim convert and Democratic Socialists of America member, attended a pro-Palestinian rally in New York in which speakers cheered the Oct. 7 massacre. She once joked about wiping her hands on an American flag because napkins weren’t available. She supports open borders, abolishing police and prisons, and “seizing the means of production,” a phrase from “The Communist Manifesto.” No wonder Mr. Mamdani endorsed her.
Does any of this sound “liberal” to you?
Instead of purging this poisonous mix of antisemitism, Islamism and communism, the Democratic Party is feeding its Trojan Horse.
On Aug. 5, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic Senate Campaign Committee (DSCC) Chair Kirsten Gillibrand jointly endorsed Mr. El-Sayed. Remember, Mr. Schumer backed Graham Platner before the Nazi-tattooed communist and accused rapist dropped out of Maine’s U.S. Senate race.
The DSCC issued a separate statement pledging money for Mr. El-Sayed, who raised more than $14 million for the primary.
Sen. Chris Murphy, Connecticut Democrat, also endorsed Mr. El-Sayed after he won. So did Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who, like Mr. Schumer, had earlier endorsed Mr. El-Sayed’s primary opponent, U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, who lost by 1 percentage point.
The only prominent Democrat to protest the takeover of the party is Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, who has lamented that “Our party’s becoming an orgy of socialism” and called DSA members “deeply anti-American” and “crazy.”
This prompted a response from Mr. El-Sayed, who Politico reported saying that Mr. Fetterman should be primaried and that, “Ideally you put one ogre on a pike, and then everyone else gets the message, and all of a sudden starts to sound a lot different.”
Remember when the term “liberal” implied tolerance but evolved into wokeness?
Democratic socialism is wokeness on steroids. Its pedigree is Marxism, which preaches tolerance only until achieving power, at which point it brutally punishes dissenters. The same goes for Islam. In the world’s 50 Muslim-majority nations, basic human rights are absent, and it is far worse for non-Muslims.
Most of these countries see the concept of religious liberty as a curse from the devil and require adherence to Shariah Law. That includes child brides, public beheadings, and treating women and non-Muslims as less than second-class citizens.
In France, Muslim-run “no go” zones make non-Muslims about as welcome as a ham sandwich at an Eid al-Fitr feast.
Many Muslim-Americans are fine people and make fine neighbors. Some Muslim-majority countries are U.S. allies. It’s Islamism, powered by sheer numbers, that is the problem. Because of it, Jews no longer feel safe in Great Britain, or increasingly in New York City.
In 1917, Russian insurrectionists arrived with the Trojan Horse of communism. It devoured them. In 1959, Fidel Castro took power in Cuba, pretending to be a Democratic socialist. He had lied about his communist plans and went on to kill his allies and turn the island into a giant prison.
When the Shah of Iran was overthrown in 1979, the Trojan Horse of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini destroyed the moderate revolutionists and imposed Shariah Law.
All this to say, beware of Trojan Horses, wherever they appear. They tend not to be as liberal as you might think.
• Robert Knight is a columnist for The Washington Times. His website is roberthknight.com.
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