Dems 2025: Stalingrad II or Keystone Kops?

March 25, 2025 by Christopher Chantrill

I am wondering about the ongoing District Judge Blitzkrieg and the Tesla Blitzkrieg and the Bernie-AOC “Fight Oligarchy” Blitzkrieg Tour. Could this be the Democrat equivalent of the Battle of Stalingrad? If so, the question is: which Democrat astroturf outfit is going to play the role of the German 6th Army?

I have a weird feeling that our Democratic friends really don’t know what they are doing. I reckon that the various Democratic Party entities are striking out mindlessly doing same old same old. If it’s judges, then it’s about stopping any and all Trump Executive Orders, because. If it’s Chuck Schumer then it’s opposing the Continuing Resolution until it isn’t. If it’s the Activist Industrial Complex it’s getting together to plan the bombing of Teslas, because. If it’s Bernie Sanders and AOC it’s a nationwide tour to “Fight Oligarchy,” because.

Okay. Forget Stalingrad II. It could be that we are watching the latest exciting episode of the Keystone Kops.

I don’t know about you, but the last few years have been a real education for me. And it’s the new independent media that did it. I didn’t really know much about the Intelligence Community until learning about the redirection of censorship and media influence from a foreign orientation to a domestic orientation during the Trump era, peaking on the day before Elon bought Twitter. And then I found out that almost everyone who is anyone has their connections with the Intelligence Community: even Katherine Maher, who had some minor role in the IC-led Color Revolutions in the republics of the former Soviet Union, and then went on to be CEO of Wikimedia, and is now CEO of NPR.

Does that mean that Wikimedia and NPR are part of the Intelligence Community?

It seems that “regime change” courtesy of the IC has been a central part of U.S. foreign policy going back to the late 1940s, and involves a whole universe of NGOs and grant recipients and universities. Even Aussie universities?

Right now, X influencers like Libs of Tik Tok and Insurrection Barbie are publicizing the notion that the Tesla mostly peaceful protests are organized by Action Network, Invisible 50501, and Political Revolution. And they think that ActBlue is helping to fund it. Luke Slywaker says that:

Action Network is a digital organizing platform that partners with various progressive groups, including MoveOn.org, to facilitate campaigns, events, and protests.

DataRepublican says that Action Network “takes money from the DNC and Soros’ Democracy PAC.”

I wonder. I wonder if all these left-wing activists and activist groups get their training in various IC-adjacent NGOs. Because the central focus of U.S. foreign policy since 1948 has been soft-power influence and election manipulation, starting with the successful CIA manipulation of the Italian general election in April 1948. Then everyone started doing it, what with the Soviet-backed coup in Czechoslovakia in that year.

Everybody’s doing it. So why shouldn’t Trump sign an Executive Order or two? That’s Different, according to the New York Times (via pjmedia.com):

Mr. Trump and his allies are aggressively attacking the players and machinery that power the left, taking a series of highly partisan official actions that, if successful, will threaten to hobble Democrats’ ability to compete in elections for years to come.

As in:

• Executive actions intended to cripple top Democrat law firms.

• Investigations of Democrat fundraising and organizing platforms.

• Ominous suggestions that nonprofits aligned with Democrats or critical of President Trump should have their tax exemptions revoked.

Like I say: all this is a very powerful education in how the Democratic Industrial Complex works. As I understand it, one of the Trump Executive Orders strips “top Democratic law firms” of their security clearances.

I know. That was my reaction. Law firms get to have security clearances? I had no idea.

Meanwhile, here is a sub-sub-section of the Democratic Industrial Complex on its way to a peaceful protest in Fairbanks, Alaska, on Saturday March 22, 2025.

A number of the peaceful protest signs demanded we “Deport Elon.” Apparently, the word has gone out from Activism Central that the rights of a South African immigrant job creator and astronaut rescuer like Elon Musk are negotiable, whereas the rights of a mostly peaceful protester like Mahmoud Khalil are sacrosanct.

But I wonder in particular about the Bernie/AOC “Fight Oligarchy” Tour. I wonder if that will propel the Democrats back into the catbird seat or whether it will prove an absolute disaster. Here’s what Sen. Sanders (I-VT) has to say:

Over the course of the next few weeks I'll be hitting the road to have real discussions across America on how we move forward to take on the Oligarchs and corporate interests who have so much power and influence in this country.

Bernie, honey. Every government is an Oligarchy. It means the few ruling over the many. E.g., the socialist Oligarchies of the Soviet Union and Communist China.

Elon Musk need not apply.

Christopher Chantrill @chrischantrill blogs at The Commoner Manifesto and runs the go-to site on US government finances, usgovernmentspending.com. Also get his American Manifesto and his Road to the Middle Class.