Are the Democrats Now a “Manchurian Party”?

The warning that there’s an “enemy within” certainly is not new. The description was used, for example, in 19th-century political and religious pamphlets. The Enemy Within would later become the title of books by commentators Michael Savage and David Horowitz, warning about the threat the so-called “Left” poses to civilization. Now another observer has sounded this alarm, while naming a party and framing matters somewhat differently.

The Democrats, he says, have become a “Manchurian Party.”

What disturbs commentator Allan J. Feifer is something unprecedented.

That is, for the first time, some Democrats are openly calling for our constitutional framework’s dismantling. Specifically, they aim to abolish the Senate and have a wholly empowered House choose the president and Supreme Court justices.

Yes, specifically, being referenced is the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Its members are in the Democratic Party, however, and are working through it. There’s something else, too:

Democratic leadership is not disavowing them.

Feifer’s framing refers, of course, to the Cold War story The Manchurian Candidate (1959). It centers around a captured Korean War American soldier who is brainwashed by the allied Chinese and Soviets. He thus becomes an unwitting sleeper agent for the communists, committing assassinations when instructed and then forgetting his actions. The theme reflects something Abraham Lincoln alluded to: The greatest threat comes not from without, but from the “enemy within.”

Feifer warns that, contrary to what some say, the Democrats aren’t dying. They’re changing — into a dark entity. Yet is the commentator missing something significant in his analysis?

Writing Wednesday, Feifer states:

Previous Democrat administrations often pursued sweeping reforms, but they generally did so through the constitutional process. …

It’s different today. Democratic Socialists of America (“DSA”) members and their supporters within the Democrat party are increasingly willing to jettison institutions, from the Senate to the Department of War and more. The debate is no longer confined to policy but has instead become a referendum on America’s legitimacy.

Ideas and candidates once considered outside the party’s mainstream are moving at warp speed toward positions of influence. That’s currently limited to blue states and cities, but that may change. Democratic socialism, identity-based politics, expanded administrative authority, and cultural ultra-progressivism increasingly dominate the party.

Feifer identifies 2020 as a turning point and fingers a cause: the Covid “pandemic.” As he puts it:

Institutions that traditionally moderated political change weakened as government authority expanded rapidly, while civic life became fragmented.

The author’s thesis is that young people emerged from the pandemic more skeptical about traditional institutions. They’d simultaneously become inured to greater government intervention to achieve ostensibly noble ends.

But is this entirely accurate? It’s perhaps more correct saying the young became cynical about the establishment generally — including its governmental dimension. This could make them more receptive to anti-establishment appeals, such as the DSA’s.

A Long History

Delving further, however, is this Democratic transformation really a relatively recent phenomenon? Well, consider what the top commenter under Feifer’s article polemically notes:

The Democrats are merely reverting to form. Wilson was a racist and an autocrat. FDR was a catastrophe to the economy and to liberty. LBJ was likewise all of the above, as was The Lightbringer [Obama]. The Democrats have been attempting to ram socialism down our throats for over a century, “for our own good”. From the Sedition Act to the 16th Amendment to gold confiscation to the NFA [National Firearms Act] to an economy-crushing administrative super state to the Ponzi scheme that is Social Security to Medicare and the Great Society and to Obamacare….

Expanding on this, I’ve heard Grover Cleveland (in office 1885-1889 and 1893-1897) called “the last great Democrat.” He was known for repeatedly uttering variations of “I find no authority in the Constitution” when vetoing spending bills.

Yet a mere half-generation later, Democratic president-to-be Woodrow Wilson touted the “living Constitution” lie. As he wrote in 1908, “Living political constitutions must be Darwinian [i.e., evolve].”

This idea increasingly gained acceptance — and, correspondingly, so did unconstitutional government growth. The result? Two decades ago already, economist Walter E. Williams estimated that at least two-thirds of the federal budget involved unconstitutional acts. It’s no wonder that in the late ’90s, famed late journalist Joseph Sobran called the Constitution a “dead letter.”

Williams didn’t mince words about why this is so, either. It’s because, he lamented, “most Americans are totally ignorant of, or have contempt for, the letter and spirit of our Constitution.”

This includes most conservatives, too, do note (though their sin is generally ignorance, not contempt). Apropos to this, I remember a conservative at website Free Republic remark, “Constitutionalism is good sometimes.” Of course, this is like saying, “Being faithful to your wife is good sometimes.”

President Bill Clinton was faithful to his wife (and to the Constitution) sometimes. Being faithful only sometimes means not being faithful at all.

A Devolution

The point is that at issue is a long process. Marriage problems don’t start when one spouse finally tells the other he wants to jettison their instituted marriage. (I.e., “I want a divorce.”) They begin long before. One spouse (or both) might’ve been unfaithful. He might’ve lost appreciation for their relationship’s founding and the couple’s shared history and family traditions. He likely came to dislike — or even despise — what he once loved. The divorce announcement was merely a culmination of the problems. It made them official.

Likewise, our problems don’t date back to 2020, to Obama, or even to the ’90s. They began more than a century ago, first with growing moral degradation (e.g., the “Roaring ’20s”). This was attended by increasing indoctrination — mild at first, then intensifying — via the schools, media, and entertainment. Inculcated was anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Western, and anti-virtue ideology, as bad was called good and good, bad. Many Americans gradually became indifferent to, and then contemptuous of, our Founders and Founding, history, and traditions. They came to believe the Constitution was outdated, insufficient, and then, finally, even perhaps a tool of “white supremacy.” God, once worshiped, became “myth” while government, once acceptably fettered, became deified. And socialism, formerly feared and despised on our shores, became increasingly accepted and yearned for.

The upshot? Polls in 2025 found that 62 percent of older Gen Zers (19-30), and 66 percent of Democrats, view socialism favorably.

Deserved Leaders

This gets at the point. Feifer and others speak as if the main problem is one of Democratic leadership not purging the DSA. But, as with businesses, politicians cater to their market (potential voters). So the real question isn’t, “Where are all the leaders?” It is, rather:

“Where are all the followers?”

The answer: dead — or now dead to Americanism.

So call these people the “enemy within” or “Manchurian” voters, there’s a rapidly spreading virus in America’s software, one that would destroy its hardware. And if this malware can’t be purged, it’s not hard predicting how the Republic’s future will be.

Short.