In the midst of the current coronavirus pandemic, Democrat Representative Maxine Waters of California recently characterized President Trump as an “incompetent idiot” whose “stupidity” had made him “a failure” at dealing with the crisis. “Your ignorance & incompetence are appalling & you continue to demonstrate that every time you open your mouth!” the congresswoman tweeted to the president.
In light of the fact that Ms. Waters purports to speak with such an air of authority on the subject of Donald Trump’s intellectual and executive deficiencies, perhaps it would be useful to examine a subject about which Waters is even more of an authority. That is, the many glories of socialism and Marxism. Her track record of unapologetic support for these ideologies and their adherents is nothing short of astounding.
- In 1982 Waters lent her name to a pamphlet published by the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, a Communist Party USA front group that was led by Party members and supporters including, among others, Angela Davis.
- On March 9, 1983 in Los Angeles, Waters participated in a solidarity gathering organized by the Federation For Progress, a Communist Workers Party front group.
- In February 1984 at UC Berkeley, Waters spoke at a conference sponsored by the Democratic Socialists of America and Socialist Review, the monthly magazine of the Socialist Workers Party.
- Circa July 1984, Waters was a sponsor of a San Francisco reception organized by the Democratic Socialists of America’s American Solidarity Movement.
- Waters served on the welcoming committee for an April 27, 1991 event in Los Angeles honoring South African Communist Party leader Chris Hani.
- “In May 1992,” writes author and political activist Trevor Loudon, “Waters put her name to a supplement in the Communist Party‘s newspaper, the People’s Weekly World, which called for readers to ‘support our continuing struggle for justice and dignity.’ Virtually all other signatories were known Communist Party members or supporters.”
- In October 1992, Waters was in St. Louis to keynote a meeting of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, an organization that began as a Communist Party front.
- Waters has been a longtime supporter of the former Black Panther, convicted cop-killer, and Marxist icon, Mumia Abu-Jamal.
- In the early to mid-1990s, Waters employed Patrick Lacefield, a prominent member of the Democratic Socialists of America, as her press secretary and speechwriter.
- Beginning in the mid-1990s, Waters became an outspoken champion for Lori Berenson, an American citizen who had been arrested and incarcerated in Peru for collaborating with Marxist guerrillas on a plot to kidnap members of the Peruvian Congress.
- On September 29, 1998, Waters wrote a letter to Cuban dictator Fidel Castro in which she apologized for having “mistakenly” voted for a House Resolution that called on the Government of Cuba to extradite to the United States the fugitive Assata Shakur and, as Waters put it, “all other individuals who have fled the United States from political persecution and received political asylum in Cuba.” Shakur was a former Black Panther, a Marxist revolutionary, and a convicted cop-killer who had broken out of prison in 1979 and subsequently fled to Cuba, where Castro gave her safe haven. In her 1998 letter to Castro, Waters referred to Shakur as a “political activist” who had been victimized by the American government’s “vicious and reprehensible” treatment of her and her fellow “Black Liberation Movement” affiliates.
- On September 9, 2000, Waters was among the many people who greeted and honored Fidel Castro during his visit to Harlem’s Riverside Church. “Viva Fidel!” the congresswoman shouted jubilantly. Castro, for his part, said: “I came to Harlem because I knew it was here that I would find my best friends.”
- In 2004, Waters lauded Democratic Socialists of America member Stanley Sheinbaum – who had been an organizer of the Pentagon Papers-Daniel Ellsberg Defense Team in 1971 – as a trustworthy friend and a valuable mentor.
- In April 2004, Waters participated in a rally organized by the International Action Center, an offshoot organization of the Marxist-Leninist Workers World Party.
- In a May 2008 congressional hearing on gasoline prices, Waters, addressing Shell Oil President John Hofmeister, stated flatly that she favored nationalizing America’s oil companies: “And guess what this liberal will be all about? This liberal will be about socializing – would be about, basically, taking over, and the government running all of your companies.”
- In the fall of 2011, Waters praised the anti-capitalist Occupy Wall Street movement for “bring[ing] attention to … the unfairness of the system.”
We can know people by the friends they keep. We can also know them by the enemies they revile. For nearly four years, Maxine Waters has made it abundantly clear that President Trump is her reviled enemy. That fact alone is a powerful testament to Mr. Trump’s excellence and effectiveness as America’s chief executive, and as a bulwark against the spread of Communism in America.
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