In Dreams from My Father, “Frank” is mentioned twenty-two times by name, and far more via pronouns and other forms of reference. He is a consistent theme, appearing repeatedly and meaningfully in all three parts of the book. He is part of Obama’s life and mind, by Obama’s own extended recounting, from Hawaii—the site of visits and late evenings together—to Los Angeles to Chicago to Germany to Africa, from adolescence to college to community organizing. “Frank” is always one of the few (and first) names mentioned by Obama in each mile-marker upon his historic path from Hawaii to Washington. When Obama at last arrived in Chicago, where he would find himself politically, professionally, and ideologically—precisely as Frank Marshall Davis had 50 years earlier—the first thing he did was think of “Frank,” literally visualizing him, picturing him there.
That a Communist Party member had any impact at all on the young, impressionable future president is disturbing in and of itself. But it is clear that Obama yearned for and needed direction. He was lacking a father figure to provide guidance, perspective, and wisdom—to help him find his identity. Davis was all too willing to play this role.
During a 2007 speech at the Communist Party USA archives at New York University, Professor Gerald Horne spoke about the parallels between these two men:
At some point in the future, a teacher will add to her syllabus Barack’s memoir and instruct her students to read it alongside Frank Marshall Davis’s equally affecting memoir, Living the Blues, and when that day comes, I’m sure a future student will not only examine critically the Frankenstein monsters that U.S. imperialism created . . . but will also be moved to come to this historic and wonderful archive in order to gain insight on what has befallen this complex and intriguing planet on which we reside.
Perhaps anticipating this very comparison, Obama purged Davis’s name from the abridged audio version of Dreams from My Father. The progressive president had learned well. He had “sacrificed the cheap satisfaction of the radical pose for the deep satisfaction of radical ends,” as his environmental czar Van Jones would term it.
That, however, hasn’t stopped Obama from carrying a torch for communism wherever he can find it. In 2016, he headed to Castro’s Cuba—the very same Castro and Cuba that John F. Kennedy had risked his entire presidency to confront—and offered the notorious Communist dictatorship his hand in friendship.
Days later, he told an audience of young leaders in Argentina, “So often in the past there’s been a sharp division between left and right, between capitalist and communist or socialist. And especially in the Americas, that’s been a big debate, right? Oh, you know, you’re a capitalist Yankee dog, and oh, you know, you’re some crazy communist that’s going to take away everybody’s property.”
Then he told the students something astonishing. “I think for your generation, you should be practical and just choose from what works,” he said. The clear implication is that communism can work—even though history has shown repeatedly that it can’t.
Socialism, communism, capitalism—there’s no real difference to Obama, and we can owe that view in large part to Frank Marshall Davis.
♠
QUIZ: ARE YOU A PROGRESSIVE?
* * *
1. How strongly do you agree/disagree with the following statement: “Economic inequality is a major problem in modern industrial societies”?
a. Strongly Agree
b. Somewhat Agree
c. Neither Agree nor Disagree
d. Somewhat Disagree
e. Strongly Disagree
2. One proper role of government is to ensure that nobody gets left behind due to circumstances beyond their control.
a. Strongly Agree
b. Somewhat Agree
c. Neither Agree nor Disagree
d. Somewhat Disagree
e. Strongly Disagree
3. Each of us bears responsibility for the safety, welfare, and happiness of our fellow men.
a. Strongly Agree
b. Somewhat Agree
c. Neither Agree nor Disagree
d. Somewhat Disagree
e. Strongly Disagree
4. When choosing between two possible laws, we should always choose the law that provides the greatest benefit to the largest number of people.
a. Strongly Agree
b. Somewhat Agree
c. Neither Agree nor Disagree
d. Somewhat Disagree
e. Strongly Disagree
5. Because individual people sometimes act selfishly, it’s OK for a government to pass laws that limit choices to ensure that people don’t get taken advantage of.
a. Strongly Agree
b. Somewhat Agree
c. Neither Agree nor Disagree
d. Somewhat Disagree
e. Strongly Disagree
6. It’s acceptable for the government to provide public funding to private charitable organizations that provide useful services to the poor.
a. Strongly Agree
b. Somewhat Agree
c. Neither Agree nor Disagree
d. Somewhat Disagree
e. Strongly Disagree
7. The wealthiest people in society have the greatest responsibility to provide for services and basic needs for the poor.
a. Strongly Agree
b. Somewhat Agree
c. Neither Agree nor Disagree
d. Somewhat Disagree
e. Strongly Disagree
8. Because some people make unhealthy choices about what they put into their bodies, it’s acceptable to pass laws that make certain things illegal or at least harder to acquire.
a. Strongly Agree
b. Somewhat Agree
c. Neither Agree nor Disagree
d. Somewhat Disagree
e. Strongly Disagree
9. Big companies who gain a monopoly over a given market pose a major threat to society and should be broken up or regulated to protect consumers.
a. Strongly Agree
b. Somewhat Agree
c. Neither Agree nor Disagree
d. Somewhat Disagree
e. Strongly Disagree
10. If we really wanted to, we could eliminate poverty through greater education, a safe environment, and fair workplaces.
a. Strongly Agree
b. Somewhat Agree
c. Neither Agree nor Disagree
d. Somewhat Disagree
e. Strongly Disagree
11. It’s an unfortunate reality that many people are inherently greedy, selfish, and violent, causing most of the problems in society.
a. Strongly Agree
b. Somewhat Agree
c. Neither Agree nor Disagree
d. Somewhat Disagree
e. Strongly Disagree
12. In any question of individual rights versus group rights, the rights of the group are greater because the individual is just one person, while the group is many people.
a. Strongly Agree
b. Somewhat Agree
c. Neither Agree nor Disagree
d. Somewhat Disagree
e. Strongly Disagree
13. The idea of race is an old-fashioned social construct, and there really is no difference between various racial or ethnic groups.
a. Strongly Agree
b. Somewhat Agree
c. Neither Agree nor Disagree
d. Somewhat Disagree
e. Strongly Disagree
14. The world would be a much better place if we treated males and females as completely equal in every way.
a. Strongly Agree
b. Somewhat Agree
c. Neither Agree nor Disagree
d. Somewhat Disagree
e. Strongly Disagree
15. Because all cultures have something to offer, we should give every culture and social group an equal voice in making laws, policies, and setting standards.
a. Strongly Agree
b. Somewhat Agree
c. Neither Agree nor Disagree
/> d. Somewhat Disagree
e. Strongly Disagree
16. The closer we get to a world where everybody has equal wealth and status, the more perfect the world will be.
a. Strongly Agree
b. Somewhat Agree
c. Neither Agree nor Disagree
d. Somewhat Disagree
e. Strongly Disagree
17. A true democracy where the majority vote rules is the only fair way for a government to operate.
a. Strongly Agree
b. Somewhat Agree
c. Neither Agree nor Disagree
d. Somewhat Disagree
e. Strongly Disagree
18. Individuals should have the right of free speech unless their speech can be shown to hurt or offend other people.
a. Strongly Agree
b. Somewhat Agree
c. Neither Agree nor Disagree
d. Somewhat Disagree
e. Strongly Disagree
19. If people aren’t willing to contribute to charity when they can afford to, it’s acceptable to pass laws to force them to give money to certain charities.
a. Strongly Agree
b. Somewhat Agree
c. Neither Agree nor Disagree
d. Somewhat Disagree
e. Strongly Disagree
20. Money (or the love of money) is the root of all evil in the world.
a. Strongly Agree
b. Somewhat Agree
c. Neither Agree nor Disagree
d. Somewhat Disagree
e. Strongly Disagree
21. People are better off when progress is driven by science and social discourse, rather than by religion or faith.
a. Strongly Agree
b. Somewhat Agree
c. Neither Agree nor Disagree
d. Somewhat Disagree
e. Strongly Disagree
See page 293 for Answer Key
PART II
THE LIES
Introduction:
The Great Lie
Hillary Clinton was doomed, and she knew it.
Trailing by double digits to a crazy-haired, wild-eyed, unrepentant socialist in every New Hampshire poll, she had little hope of turning things around. Time was too short. Bernie Sanders’s crowds were too massive. The architect of the first effort to cram socialized medicine down America’s collective throat was on the defensive, preposterously, as insufficiently radical.
With just days to go before the vote, this was no longer a fight for victory in the first primary state. This was a fight for her reputation. A fight for her political soul.
For most of the campaign, Senator Sanders had worked hard to define himself as the only true “progressive” in the Democratic hierarchy. That wasn’t too hard for a radical who had been an apologist for Marxists around the globe for decades, cheering them to victory against the United States.
In the 2016 race, Sanders proudly dubbed himself the most “progressive” member of the U.S. Senate and suggested that his opponent, Clinton, was a “moderate” and a sellout. No charge could be more deadly in a primary dominated by modern-day hippies, race- and gender-obsessed victim groups, jobless millennials, union thugs, and the permanently aggrieved.
So on February 3, 2016, as Clinton climbed onto the stage in the tiny town of Keene, displaying her fiercest glare and donning her most formidable pantsuit, she expressed “disappointment” that Sanders would deny her the title of “progressive.” Her record in such matters should be beyond question, she contended to a crowd of her supporters. As her spokesman later put it, “You would be hard pressed to find a more accomplished and passionate progressive.”
Days later, standing only a few feet from her political nemesis in an MSNBC debate, she again laid claim to the progressive label. “I am a progressive who gets things done,” she said, adding, “The root of that word—‘progressive’—is progress.” Secretary Clinton noted that in Sanders’s view, even Barack Obama might not be a progressive.
As it happened, the president himself took umbrage with that suggestion only a few days later. At a speech in Springfield, Illinois, where eight years earlier he had all but claimed to be this century’s Abraham Lincoln, Obama announced that he was a progressive, too: “I am a progressive Democrat. I am proud of that. I make no bones about it.”
Which leads to the question, which of these three is the real progressive?
Easy. They are all progressives. The whole lot of them—Clinton, Sanders, Obama, and their allies in Washington, D.C. Progressives have hijacked the entire Democratic Party, which was once the proud political party that elected the tax-slashing and fiercely anticommunist John F. Kennedy as president. So, too, have they hijacked most members of the Republican Party, whose leaders are perfectly content to accede to the progressive status quo of a federal government that intrudes into our lives and confiscates our property daily. They deny this, of course, but that’s because progressives are accomplished liars. The terms go hand in hand.
And that’s what we’re going to explore in this part of the book: the deceit that is used as a tool to stir and exploit fear. All of their lies prey on our most primal emotions: envy, jealousy, loneliness, and, above all else, the terror of death. Whether it’s “rising oceans” that will swallow our coastal cities on account of melting ice caps, or “automatic assault rifles” that will be used to murder us all, or “income inequality” that will turn us into paupers, the Left has perfected the art of the Great Lie.
The Great Lie actually starts with word progressive itself. They constantly mislead about what it actually means. They want you to believe that progressives are basically forward-thinking liberals who believe in democracy, open debates, free thinking, and looking out for their fellow man. They are harmless leftists. You know, like the Swedes.
As Clinton herself noted, the root word of progressive is progress—and progress is a good thing, right? With each passing year, we have more miraculous innovations that extend our lives and make them more convenient. We have more scientific discoveries that reveal truths about subjects from the farthest reaches of the universe to the makeup of the smallest atomic particles. All of these are evidence of a species on the march. We move forward, not backward. Who could be against that? Who could stand in the way of that kind of “progress”? Why would anyone not call himself or herself a “progressive”?
This is one of the arguments that makes progressives so sinister. They harness the best marketing terms to mask the insidiousness of their ideology. To protect the Great Lie.
Progressives claim that they stand for the future. The truth is that progressives actually represent the oldest impulse known to mankind: the will to power, to dominate, and to exploit. At the heart of progressivism is a deeply regressive ideology, one that eliminates individual freedom and makes men serfs and slaves.
Progressives claim that they are basically warmed-over liberals. The truth, as you’ve seen in the history of the founding fathers of progressivism, beginning with Hegel through Marx and Wilson through LBJ and Obama, is that progressivism is the opposite of liberalism, at least as it was once properly understood. Liberals—philosophers such as John Locke, John Stuart Mill, and Adam Smith—invented the idea of individual freedom. This idea captured the imaginations of a generation of freedom fighters born in thirteen colonies some three centuries ago. They took those ideas and put them into practice with two radical documents: the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Theirs was a reaction against centralized government, a revolution of the individual against the collective.
But progressivism stands for the idea that freedom isn’t enough, that voluntary cooperation and the free market and individual rights do not work. To improve the quality of life for everyone, government must intervene with rules and regulations. Progressivism is the salve for the struggle, pain, and anxiety of living in a difficult and unpredictable world.
Progressives claim to fight for the average man. The truth is that most of them have bo
th pity and contempt for human beings. They see the rest of us as machines that can be tinkered with and perfected. They believe they know what’s best for everyone. They think that if we submit to the government expert-determined progressive agenda—which included disenfranchisement of African-Americans in the Jim Crow South in the late nineteenth century, prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s, eugenics and eliminating supposedly defective races (which animated Hitler’s campaign of extermination in the 1930s and ’40s)—we can create utopia. They believe that under the banner of “social justice” we can, in effect, become God, that they can create heaven on earth. It may take centuries or even longer, but gradually, generation by generation, progressives can do it. If patience is a virtue, progressives are the most virtuous people on earth.
Progressives claim to believe in a compassionate, tolerant, live-and-let-live society. But in fact, the heart of progressivism lies in two core principles:
• Individual and human society is perfectible, and therefore all problems known to man have solutions.
• An enlightened few can impose these solutions on everyone else.
Both principles are obviously false. The first runs counter to everything most of us believe about human nature, selfishness, and sin—not to mention plenty of historical evidence that men living today are just as capable of depravity and evil as they were millennia ago. The second principle, a kind of tyranny of good intentions, is deeply antidemocratic. It rejects most Americans’ fundamental belief in human equality.
Ideas have consequences. And no idea may be as catastrophic as progressivism. Progressivism spawned socialism, communism, and fascism. Many of the greatest evils of the twentieth century—Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin—share their ideology, their belief systems, and their motivations with the progressive movement, the very same movement that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama want to claim as their own.
In what follows, I’ll go through some of the more common lies we hear from progressives or about the progressive ideology. I’ll use their own words to show you the lies, and then I’ll take each of them apart using facts, logic, and common sense.