In case you thought Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., was going to soft-pedal socialism in his presidential election or even pretend to play nice with the Democratic Party, guess again. In what can almost certainly be deemed a warning shot at the DNC and the candidate field as a whole, Sanders has hired none other than David Sirota as his senior adviser and speechwriter.
Sirota, an oft-obnoxious socialist who swings between media and failed political bids, is basically a lunatic. Sirota is no ordinary Swedophile who spews hackneyed platitudes about “universal healthcare” or open borders and open hearts. No, Sirota gushes about real socialism — Venezuelan socialism. He has lauded former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for posing “a serious threat to the global system of corporate capitalism.” He likened the late father of Venezuela’s ruin to Martin Luther King, Jr. in a Salon piece which celebrated “Chavez’s economic miracle.”
Sirota sounds more like Trump than any other Democrat in the field when excoriating NAFTA and open borders, which he does not base on American but on Mexican interests. He has equated believers in free trade to the “faith-based fundamentalists” of al Qaeda, and he has cozied up to Jeremy Corbyn.
But the big liability for Bernie is Sirota’s months of undisclosed work for his campaign, bullying and lambasting fellow Democratic contenders, all while Bernie touted a veneer of civility in primary politics. If you thought the Bernie Bros were bad enough in a one-way war against Clinton Inc., just wait until their ripened rage is directed towards Kamala the Cop, or even worse to the radicalized wing of the Democratic Party, Uncle Joe Biden.
Bernie’s budding war chest seems to indicate that, rather than try and align with the intersectional Left, he’s doubling down on a Stalinist vision for the American economy. Sirota is no ordinary #Resister decrying President Trump’s lack of love for undocumented children. He’s a socialist to the core, and as much a populist as any MAGA-lyte.
Democrats may balk that Sirota unethically issuing scathing diatribes against fellow contenders as if he were an impartial commentator — he notably attacked Beto O’Rourke for embracing “Obamaism,” an ideology Sirota says “left us with a country that is now more oligarchy than democracy” — conservatives should take note of the ideological lines Bernie has drawn.
If Bernie wins the Democratic nomination, he’ll bring Corbynized domestic politics and a Marxist economic agenda a heartbeat away from the presidency. And we’ll have to somehow rely on Donald Trump to stop it.
