Josh Gottheimer goes scorched-earth on anti-American socialists trying to hijack party

A leading House Democrat went scorched-earth on insurgent socialists rising within his party, repeatedly telling them to start their own party and accusing them of trying to “hijack” the Democratic Party as a “vessel” for their communist, “anti-American,” open-border platform.House Intelligence Committee member Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., a leader of the moderate Blue Dog Coalition, told Fox News on Sunday that the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is “not Democrats” and rejected the idea that its platform is compatible with the Democratic Party’s.“Obviously, I’m a very proud, commonsense Democrat, and I don’t think DSA members are Democrats.They’re socialists, right? And I’m all for them having their own party if they want one, but if they’re trying to take over our party, that’s unacceptable to me,” Gottheimer said on “The Big Weekend Show.”“Their values, their ideas are certainly not in line with ours, and they don’t support our leadership.

They’re trying to use the Democratic Party as a vessel for their ideas.And as you heard in some of these conventions, literally, they’re supporting the Communist Manifesto and [Leon] Trotsky, they’re anti-American, they are anti-cop, they don’t believe in borders.”Gottheimer was referring to man-on-the-street clips of DSA members at the group’s Chicago convention.

One socialist said they are organizing a front to get “ICE off our campuses,” while a member of the DSA’s National Political Committee said people such as Gottheimer who call them anti-American do not understand that their platform is the “most American thing you can do.”Another DSA NPC member said socialism is the “same kind of stuff that I am used to [in] growing up in the Christian Church.”Gottheimer said 45 million voters are registered Democrats, compared with 150,000 official DSA members.“They’re not welcome in the Democratic Party,” he said.He pushed back against members of his own...