Of Commies and Skin Suits
With a dash of history and credit to Augustus Caesar, Buffalo Bill, and Instapundit.
Communists in the U.S., previously disguised as Democratic Socialists, for all their radicalism and self-proclaimed worship of new “progressive” ideas, have adopted a centuries-old strategy to undermine and destroy the United States of America.
The strategy with this long pedigree is the “skin suit” strategy that has existed since time immemorial. Regular readers of Instapundit will recognize the elements:
1. Identify a respected institution.
2. Kill it.
3. Gut it.
4. Wear its carcass as a skin suit, while demanding respect.
How it works
Rather than creating a new organization from scratch, power-hungry revolutionaries infiltrate a established organization or institution. They adopt its well-recognized and trusted name, logo, and other accidental features (the "skin suit") to take advantage of its historic prestige. But while maintaining a façade of legitimacy and false history, they are driven by a new and different ideology.
After killing the essence of the historic institution, they gut it. They install new levers of power to abolish the fundamental principles of the original institution and substitute their new principles. These are mandatory, not optional. They kill off the old guard of leaders and power brokers along with anyone else who is unwilling to embrace the new governing principles and rules.
Then, despite their unearned authority, still relying up on the prestige of the now dead and gutted old institution, they demand respect and obedience from everyone. The penalty for any who resist compliance is ruin, exile, or even death.
A historical pedigree
The skin suit strategy has an ancient pedigree. The Emperor Augustus realized that Romans fiercely hated the thought of a monarchy. So instead of abolishing the old system, he gutted it from within.
Augustus maintained a facade of traditional Republican institutions such as the Senate, consuls, and even regular elections. In reality, however, he stripped the traditional offices and institutions of actual power, concentrating total military and financial control in his own hands. Opponents were dealt with harshly in the Roman way of the times.
But by wearing the “skin suit” of the dying Roman Republic, Augustus gave his brand-new military dictatorship immediate, unearned legitimacy.
In more recent times, even Hollywood popularized the image, albeit in a different context. In The Silence of the Lambs Ted Levine’s character, Buffalo Bill, was an early would-be trans woman. He killed real women to use their cadavers to sew a "skin suit” that would allow him to pass as a woman.
And today ….
As the InstaProfessor often points out (crediting @Iowahawk David Burge) a variety of scoundrels employ the skin suit strategy for their own nefarious ends.
Examples abound, but one of the dangerous in my view is the ongoing infiltration of the formerly respected Democrat party by crypto communists.
Thus, we have the so-called Democratic Socialists, led by Godfather Sanders, Queen Ocasio-Cortez, and hopeful dauphin Zohran Kwame Mamdani. They have infiltrated the Democrat party and run for election relying upon its name, prestige, levers of power, and sources of money. All the while they seek to fill the ranks with violence-promoting insurrectionist of their own ilk.
And although they have caucused with the Democrats and used the less threatening label of “Democratic Socialists,” make no mistake about it: Their aims and policies are communist: Destroy our republican form of government including the Senate, the Electoral College, and the Supreme Court. Eliminate any meaningful brakes on their power provided by our constitutional tripartite system of checks and balances that preserves freedom and prevents tyranny. Rig elections. Ruin and imprison political opponents; facilitate their murder. Free college, free rent, free transportation, free medical care, free …. everything. And it is only “free” for the suckers because it will be paid for by confiscating other people’s money and seizing their income producing assets. Somewhere Nikita Khrushchev is chortling.
As one of them, former Democratic Socialist Jake Altman, observed, “Their angle is communism.”
All for the common good, of course.
And they have begun their effort to kill off the old guard. Some have already fallen. Adios Dan Goldman. Others, like Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer have their heads on a swivel, constantly on guard lest they lose those very same heads.
And those who oppose them face potential ruin. These putative victims include not only members of their old gutted party, but clear adversaries such as Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth.
As was true under Augustus Caesar and emperors who followed him, the loss of a safe sinecure, such as a profitable House or Senate seat, falls on the lesser end of the spectrum of punishments for those who will not toe the line. Even those accused of more venial sins, such as “dead naming“ a pretend woman, can be targeted for financial destruction and the loss of their livelihoods. Doubt me? Check out the restaurant worker fired by Chili’s because he continued to call a co-worker by her “government-issued” [sic] name instead of her preferred name of "Fish." He even failed to describe her with they/them pronouns. You’re fired!
On the other end of the spectrum of targets are those who represent a fundamental threat to the power sought by the Commies. These dissenters must be killed. Trump, of course, is Exhibit A in this prosecution.
And even those who may try to insulate themselves from the murderous act itself do not hesitate to egg on the tools who have no such compunctions. Looking at you, Senator Schumer, with your blatant threat to Supreme Court Justices: “You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won't know what hit you….”
My message to readers — to everyone
Do not be deceived. Do not assume that your children or grandchildren are learning the truth at school. Do not assume that those who are college graduates know the first thing about economics, history, or communism. Do not assume that your local politicians or those who represent you nationally will do the right thing just because it is right. Do not just ignore, but take on and refute the false promises from the false prophets whenever and wherever you hear them. Act.
Someone is going to lose this fight. It must not be those who love this great Republic.
Pass it on.
A personal note to my subscribers
For various reasons I have been unable to post anything for over a month. That shall improve. Thank you for hanging in there.
I learned recently that this effort is being led by educated (indoctrinated) white young people. I am embarrassed to say that one of my own, who spent 7 years in college attaining two degrees, is taken in by this foolishness. This person was raised in a household that benefited from capitalism, which is why we could pay for 7 years of college - private and out of state colleges. I often wonder where we went wrong. I now believe the mistake we made was paying for all that education. That is where this person was indoctrinated, despite growing up in a household that valued the fruits of hard work.
I used to wonder why the Communist Party of the Soviet Union went through the motions of constitutional government. There were elections (in which occasionally a non-Communist would get elected to the legislature) and all the structures of the constitutional government, yet all the decisions were made by the Party. The leader, the General Secretary, frequently had no official role in the government, and the Politburo was a Party leadership organ completely outside the government (although usually some of the members had jobs in the government).
The conclusion I came to was that there had to have been some significant proportion of the people of the USSR who were loyal not to the Party, but to the nation, and the Party actually feared them and needed to co-opt them by going through the pretense of constitutional government, even while they were terrorizing people and sending them to gulags and executing them for being insufficiently revolutionary.