The Enemy Within: How a Totalitarian Movement is Destroying America, by David Horowitz

Regnery, 2021

David Horowitz has been warning for decades that the American left stands in opposition to America, in both its lack of appreciation of the principles of the American founding expressed in both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and of the country’s history and achievements and economic system which have enabled the nation to grow and prosper.  America’s history is hardly blemish free, of course, with a long and troubling record with among others, Native Americans and Blacks who were brought to the country as slaves, and who faced mistreatment and discrimination after the Civil War for a century or more. But America’s record is also one of addressing and often overcoming these challenges to its founding principles, including the enormous sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of  lives in our Civil War, which resulted in the end of slavery, and the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, led by Dr. Martin Luther King, which saw new laws passed to finally finish off the Jim Crow system, eliminate imposed segregation, end discrimination in public accommodations, and create real voting rights for blacks and all citizens.

Horowitz’s latest book is clear on how the left views this history as an un-ending struggle by oppressed people of color against racism and white supremacy, which it argues has been the core value of our country since 1619.  The left argues that this requires an unraveling or destruction of all the systems of economic control and racism which exist and continue to damage marginalized groups.

Horowitz’s latest book is a stark warning on how close we now are to the left accomplishing its long-term goal of dominating American politics in perpetuity. Horowitz has always distinguished the left, with its Marxist and totalitarian orientation, visions and goals from a more conventional and mainstream liberal polity, which has always been part of the American two-party system, sometimes in power, sometimes not.  Today the left has moved from its ancestral home on the college campus which it has dominated for half a century, to gaining power and control of many other major American institutions, and now to a position of near dominance of American politics, through its control of the Democratic Party.

The left may or may not comprise a majority among professed supporters of the Democratic Party, though among elected officials in the federal government, the left is now in complete control. There are 50 Democratic Senators, almost all of whom at one time or another supported the filibuster in the US Senate. The Senate was established to be a deliberative body, one less subject to current passions, and purely majoritarian impulses in one party. The Electoral College was another feature of both the founders’ belief in federalism, the importance of states and a role for different geographic regions, and interests.  Now, at most a handful of Democrats in the Senate (probably fewer), are willing to preserve the only remaining rule which provides a meaningful role for the minority party. Should America’s political future ride on the disposition of one West Virginia Senator? If Joe Manchin is turned, then we will have new states in the union, permanent Democratic majorities in the Senate, Supreme Court packing, and  immediate passage of every bit of radical legislation in the left’s dream box including assaults on the principles of federalism, which provides for states to exercise power in various areas, such as voting rules. The recently passed stimulus bill prevents states from reducing taxes if they accept federal stimulus money. The assault has begun.

Those on the left are certainly a minority among all adult Americans. But the Democrats now control the presidency, and both Houses of Congress with very small majorities, and the left controls the elected Democrats and are pressing their advantage.  In the meantime, the opposition party, the Republicans, seem unable to focus their effort on the great challenge ahead to slow down the express train of new policies, and spending and rules. These initiatives are designed to reward and enrich those who are part of the governing coalition, to make the minority party a permanent minority and to make published opposition to the new “progressive and anti-racist” vision, unavailable to readers, and socially unacceptable if not criminal.

Barack Obama’s decisive win in the 2008 Presidential race was believed by the left to be the signal that their day had come. Obama won the popular vote by 9.5 million and picked up more than two thirds of the Electoral College votes. Democrats won an 80-seat margin in the House, and 59 Senate seats, which soon became a filibuster proof 60 after Arlen Spector switched parties.  Obama himself said his election would change America.  The conventional political wisdom was that demographic changes in America would allow Democrats to build their majorities and continue to win going forward. Mostly non-white legal immigrants, and higher birth rates among non-white groups would drive down the white share of voters, the only group among whom Republicans were still a majority.

Things did not turn out that way. An unpopular health care bill led to big GOP gains in 2010, and control of the US House, plus big gains at the state level in governors and state legislators, leading to redistricting advantages.   In 2014, Republicans won back the Senate. Then came Donald Trump’s stunning victory in 2016. Democrats were supposed to have a blue wall that virtually assured a win in Presidential contests in the Electoral College. Instead Trump broke through in states that had not gone Republican in nearly 30 years, attracting many former Democrats in rural areas, small towns, and once thriving industrial cities. Most Democrats (not just the left) seemed unable to process Trump’s victory and certainly did not accept it. No president in recent history has faced the kind of sustained attacks personally, and on his programs, that Trump did.

At the start of 2020, Trump seemed destined to win re-election. The economy was strong, job and wage growth had advanced broadly through the population, including among Blacks and Hispanics, and the President had reversed some of the perception of a country in decline with one sector of the population, the highly educated, doing very well, and many more struggling and falling back. The President had survived a Russia collusion hoax perpetrated by a hostile media and many Democrats in Congress, and a party line impeachment vote in the House, losing but one Republican Senator on one of two charges at his trial for an offense that had never been viewed as impeachment-worthy before. And then came the Wuhan virus.

Certainly, the Trump administration made serious mistakes, just as prior administrations had with other new health issues when they arose. But the coverage of Trump and his  policies to address the virus were unremittingly negative.  The left was convinced the virus could defeat Trump and it did. Make Americans miserable, and they will throw out the incumbent. Many states, most of them leaning or heavily Democratic, chose harsh lockdowns which threw people out of work, and closed schools, which led to increased isolation, alcoholism, drug abuse and mental illness, and untreated health issues since people feared going to hospitals or doctors’ offices.  Democratic Governors and the current Vice President were among those who argued that vaccines would be unreliable if they were produced by the Trump administration.  Of course, the vaccines would not come from Trump, but from drug companies doing miracle work in record time, encouraged by the Trump administration to take risks and by his agreement to pay for vaccines once they were available and received authorization.

Then came the late May death of George Floyd in police custody. Suddenly, America needed a racial reckoning and a toxic dose of it was received. Critical race theory and other anti-racism initiatives were implemented everywhere and quickly at great expense. Corporations made contributions in the billions to groups like BLM, which are anti- white, anti-American, anti-capitalist, anti-nuclear family, and anti-Semitic. Otherwise, the group was pretty mainstream. 

The infectious disease people who had told their state officials to keep people at home, now thought it important for tens of thousands of people to be out on the streets in close quarters to scream at and harass police, or to “break away from the largely peaceful demonstrations” to set buildings and shops on fire, loot stores, and attack police and others in their way.  Practically every major professional organization, non-profit organization, corporation, social media platform, university and media company pledged to do their part to fight racism, since obviously what happened in Minneapolis was evidence of the country’s systemic racism. LeBron James offered his wisdom that Black men felt like they were being hunted by the police.       

The reality of course was that about a dozen unarmed Blacks are killed by police in an average year. But nearly 10,000 Blacks were killed by other Blacks in 2020, a more than 25% increase over 2019, virtually all of the year-to-year increase  occurring after George Floyd’s death. Heather MacDonald provided all the numbers and analysis one would need to look at crime rates, and police shootings but Google’s You Tube thought it too hot to handle, making it difficult to access her presentation. The attacks on police produced BLM demands to defund the police or eliminate the police, and led to a pullback from active policing in some cities. Gangs and other criminals had more freedom to operate, creating near state of nature conditions in some cities, such as Chicago.

The attempt to de-platform MacDonald, was just a prelude to the major social networking companies’ effort to prevent Trumps’ re-election. This included hiding the New York Post’s  Hunter Biden/China connection story just before the November election. The Capitol riots of January 6th made it easy for Silicon Valley to try to destroy the Parler website,  ban President Trump  from Facebook and Twitter, take down  posts which challenged the election results, and treat those who believed fraud had occurred, including US Senators and House members,  as insurrectionists, expanding the universe of a few hundred people who behaved horribly on January 6th at the Capitol to include most of the 74 million-plus Trump voters.

The events since President Biden’s inauguration are more evidence  of how the left is acting in concert to radically change the country before too many people wake up and notice. Send a stimulus check to people, and they will spend it and think better of the government and its policies. Meanwhile no one outside of a small number of conservative media voices will honestly convey the chaos created by the President’s reckless open borders policy, or the reality that the President may not be all there and others are pulling the strings and using Biden as the moderate, calming cover for a radical playbook. 

The Enemy Within is the latest in Horowitz’s long string of books that provide a continuing theme on the attempts by the left to create a new America. What you see is what you get, and Horowitz remains committed to allowing us to see what is really going on, despite the censorship and cancel culture which are thriving.  For if we see, we can also commit to engage in the struggle to preserve and build a different America than the one sought by the left.