In Focus delivers deeper coverage of the political, cultural, and ideological issues shaping America. Published daily by senior writers and experts, these in-depth pieces go beyond the headlines to give readers the full picture. You can find our full list of In Focus pieces here.The 2020 Black Lives Matter insurrection came close to achieving regime change in America, yet failed because Marxists did not anticipate that Americans would rise to defend their country. But Marxists are now better prepared to deal with counter-revolution.That’s the view of Angela Davis, and she should know. For six decades, this inveterate communist has been a leading participant in attempts to overthrow a system she despises: the American Way of Life.
When not leading revolution herself, Davis has been a key influence over younger ideologues vying to become the American Lenin, Mao or Castro. The founders of the BLM organizations adored her and drew inspiration from this former vice-presidential candidate for the Communist Party.I propose we look at news events swirling in the ether today as she described the current decade in a recent interview in Brooklyn. Indeed, we should look at everything through this prism, from the rise of the DSA to President Donald Trump’s fight with the Smithsonian Institution to the continuing struggle over DEI at schools, universities and places of work.Marxists nearly overthrew the American regime in 2020, when seven years of street violence culminated in months-long riots sparked by the police killing of George Floyd on May 25. The stewards of our cultural institutions lost their nerve, surrendered, and accepted the lies the revolutionaries were spreading as justification for overthrowing the system. They then began instituting policies that would have changed the country beyond recognition.But conservative forces recovered in the nick of time, and stalled the advance while electing the political leaders needed to reverse course. Glenn Youngkin was the first in 2021. Then came the re-election of Trump in 2024.“I suppose I would say that this period, uh, has qualities of, characteristics of, counterrevolution. What we’ve experienced over the last years, including the last elections, has been a response to a powerful, progressive surge of history,” Davis said when asked by the moderator, Jelani Cobb, what accounted for what is, in Cobb’s view, the rapid fragmentation of democracy under Trump.Cobb had asked, “What do you think goes into this rapid devolution that we’ve seen of American democracy, which was fragile from the gate? … I think of myself as fairly skeptical, [but] I’ve been shocked by the velocity at which these things have transpired.”Cobb himself personifies the surrender by our top institutions. In 2022, the Trustees of Columbia University appointed this leftist firebrand — who quoted Marx to Davis during the interview and gushed at one point, “God bless you” — as dean of the highly acclaimed Columbia Journalism School, and the “Henry R. Luce professor of Journalism,” so he could mold the minds of future journalists.The 82-year-old Davis is lionized in the progressive world. Her Kahn Humanities Lecture at the Brooklyn Public Library reached capacity early on, and the wait list, too, filled up. But this former Black Panther is not a nice person, to say the least.Not only does she continue to support communism, an ideology responsible for the death of 100 million people, but — despite advertising herself as a “prison abolitionist” — she showed no qualms about anti-communist dissidents languishing in gulags behind the old Iron Curtain.Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz once asked her to intercede on behalf of Jewish refuseniks in Soviet prisons, given that Soviet leaders feted her. Davis, he said, replied, “They are all Zionist fascists and opponents of socialism.” She showed the same contempt for Czech dissidents, of whom she said, “They deserve what they get. Let them remain in prison.”And that would undoubtedly be the fate of Americans who dared to question the regime if socialists ever grab the reins of power in America.Angela Davis
