“[T]hose who remain faithful to Marxism are getting reinforcements from all sides. They no longer pretend that Communism as an economic system was good in itself, in the absolute sense, nor that it remains an ideal to be concretized. Communism’s merits are gauged in relation to the execrated capitalist system, the old adversary against which it wages eternal warfare. Thereby it has gained this definitive advantage: it does not have to exist in order to be true.”
“The American campus phenomenon, which extends also into some American newspapers, magazines, radio and television channels, is a reminder that the Marxist mentality can flourish and have considerable effect on public debate even in nations where Communism did not succeed in forming a party with electoral clout or influence in the unions. Communism can be an ideological presence even where it has never been a political player.
With regard to Communist crimes, the American moral dilemma differs fundamentally from that of Europe. In the United States, the deeds of Stalin and Mao never drew the active complicity or the massive approbation that Europeans bestowed on them. Today, in the American circles where the Marxist delusion still flourishes, it is for the most part theoretical and abstract, or the posture of a minority of “liberal” intellectuals.”
from: Jean-François Revel, Last Exit to Utopia
The above was published in 2000 and Revel passed away 10 years ago, prior to the resurgence of Communist and Marxist ideas mainstreamed by the Obama administration. Let’s not kid ourselves that the current state of the nation at the beginning of the Trump administration is in some political balance. America went far Left under Obama. The signs abound–street actions, speech suppression, wilding thugs, government occupation of the healthcare market, entitlements off the charts, a Leviathan regulatory monster over head, and the Left fighting tooth and nail lest any of it get rolled back.