The subtitle of this article might be The Strange Semantics of Subversion. Oh, the irony of it all.

I remember reading, years ago, that Liberals and Communists were on opposite sides of the political spectrum. Communists oppose individual freedom. On the other hand, Liberal used to mean someone who celebrates individual freedom, as in liberty, liberation, liberating, and libertarian.

A Jeffersonian Liberal was anyone who honored all the ideas contained in our Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights. That's simple enough.

A big problem for the far-left, however, was that they hated all those ideas. They would kill millions to eliminate those ideas. But how was the far-left going to take over this country if everybody knew them for the freedom-haters they are?

In the early 1900s, John Dewey and his followers were busy sabotaging the ed schools so they could create a new variety of teacher who would then deform the country. John Dewey was a Socialist. All of his supporters were Socialists (or Communists). For the Socialists themselves, "Socialism" was a proud name, and they wished they could use it. But for Americans generally, it was a dirty word. So John Dewey and his gang reluctantly started using the word Progressive (i.e., modern or advanced).

This maneuver was brilliant deception, brilliant marketing. These are things that the far-left is good at, necessarily so or they would not survive. Calling themselves and everything they did progressive gave them a certain cachet, a certain freedom. They were infiltrating and debasing the public school system, right in front of your face. The word progressive let them get away with this treachery.

However, little by little, the American public sensed the truth. People on the left seemed to use the word progressive endlessly, but they weren't progressive in a good sense; they were progressive in some other sense. (One can argue that "progressive education" is in fact an oxymoron.) Progressive became a handicap.

Socialists needed a new cover word, and that word was Liberal. This was a positive word, most Americans liked it. So the Commies and fellow travelers embraced the word Liberal big time. By the mid-20th century, most Democrats used Liberal in a very positive sense. Liberal Democrat was a common pairing.

That was very much the pattern going into the 21st century. You had your closet Socialists and your closet Communists, almost all of them hiding behind the word Liberal. This worked, but it created endless confusion and disingenuousness. Socialists and Communists never confessed to their actual orientation. The true picture was rarely spelled out, certainly not by our mendacious media.

But note that the essential situation never changed. Whatever they called themselves, the far-left always wanted more power and control for itself, and less freedom for everyone else. They wanted to give us the world in 1984 but call it paradise.

Then came the election of 2020 when lots of the far-left people started calling themselves what they are. Bernie Sanders would admit to being a Socialist and probably a Communist (the big difference is a question of how much violence you'll use). Almost all Democrats started using the word Socialist, so Socialists could then use the word Communist. These shifts were quite remarkable. They have not been fully explained except to say that Democrats thought that Trump was hated and they could easily regain power, so they might as well do it with their true colors flying. That’s probably the same reason they let their storm troopers riot and destroy city blocks. Apparently George Soros thinks that middle-class Americans will vote for this ultra-violence—a strange idea.

Meanwhile there were all kinds of Democrats, all comfortable with the word Liberal, and suddenly they were in the room with Elizabeth Warren, Beto O’Rourke, and AOC. Screaming Commies and Liberals were now smoking reefer at the same party.

Another weird wrinkle is that these far-left militants were effectively our Fascists. Any time you want a big powerful government and you want weak individual citizens, you have Communism, or you have Fascism. There is not much difference excepting legalistic terms prescribing who owns resources and businesses. The Left likes to pretend that the Nazis were Fascists but that they themselves—the Communists—are good guys. No, they're all bad guys because they all want too much power, which they will surely abuse. Who killed the most of his own people? Mao killed 60 million. Stalin killed 20 million. Pol Pot killed a third of his own country. Fascists and Commies have far more in common than not.

Thus we have Socialists, Communists, Fascists, and Liberals all in bed together. Some may not wish to be grouped like this, but they've earned it. All four groups hate freedom for individual citizens.

So now is a good time for everyone to figure out what they, and others, really are. Hopefully we still have a patriotic majority who want to be personally free. They also wish their neighbors to be free. That's a foundation we can build on.

Teachers can get in on the semantic action, helping students to feel the various nuances. Meanings change with each speaker because politicians have to posture. But everyone can ask this question about any remark: what is the politician condemning or approving? Will this politician protect your life and property? Or will this politician encourage the mob to camp out in your house or apartment? Their answers are your future.