In hockey, it is routine for a defenseman to project a slap shot from the blue line into a crowd in front of the net. The hope is that his or her teammate’s stick—or, inadvertently, an opponent’s body—will deflect the puck, alter its course, and steer it past a goaltender who is moving in the opposite direction and, thus, has little chance to make a save. While not a fan of soccer (a.k.a. “football”), I suppose this play has its equivalent in other sports, where the kick is projected toward the goal and a teammate “heads” the ball into the net past the flailing goalkeeper.
Speaking of projection, deflection, and kicks to the head, this routine maneuver undoubtedly constitutes page one of the left’s political playbook. The question is whether the right can keep their eye on the puck and prevent the left from firing unfounded shots into the electoral scrum and, abetted by a gaggle of media milling about the goal crease, scoring partisan points and winning elections through projection and deflection.
Perhaps the first and foremost instance of leftist deflection and disinformation is the lie that MAGA and, indeed, the entire revitalized Republican Party are “fascists” and/or Nazis. While this vile deceit is patently ludicrous—and, in many ways, rebounds against those hurling the accusation—what is important to remember is why the left casts this dithyrambic condemnation in the first place: projection and, yes, deflection.
As has often been said, the left accuses its victims of what the left is actually doing.
Consequently, when the left denounces MAGA and the GOP as being “fascists,” they are claiming we have become dangerously enthralled with a destructive foreign ideology. Yet, the reality is quite the opposite: the Democrats have become dangerously enthralled with a destructive foreign ideology—socialism.
Should one dispense with the left’s projections and deflections, then, the Democrats’ radical drift is patent. Bluntly, the Democrat Party no longer subscribes to the foundational principles of the United States and, alternately, hungers to transmogrify our constitutional republic into a one-party socialist state.
Democrats have an increasing and ominous acceptance and regard for socialism. This helps explain the recent rise of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which includes individuals such as U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and New York State Representative and, likely, the next mayor of the Big Apple, Zohran Mamdani, and constitutes the coming of an even more radical sect than the progressives within the overarching Democrat Party. In its very title, the DSA is unashamed of proclaiming the party’s imported European ideology and aims, as well as implicitly broadcasting its members’ elitism and ignorance. This rare burst of truth in advertising is subsumed by the narrative fictions constituting the party’s risible paeans to socialism as a salubrious approach to problem solving and, for that matter, the illusory sheen that “socialism” in 2025 is new and chic—cue: Eugene V. Debs and Stalin—though, in fairness, it could well seem so to those who have never learned the lessons of history or, for that matter, a damn thing about American civics.
Regarding the ignorance of American civics, the Democrats’ progressive wing has a slightly better grasp of the subject than the DSA, but that is only because of the necessity of having a hazy understanding of the foundational American principles they seek to fundamentally transmogrify and destroy.
Ponder the deep thoughtlessness of progressive U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who is living proof that, when it comes to the Senate, while sometimes cream rises to the top, more often sh-t floats. Sen. Kaine apparently “found troubling” the foundational American principle that every citizen has God-given rights that cannot be infringed and must be protected by government—often from the government—and compared the concept to Iran’s theocratic regime. Called on the regal red carpet, Sen. Kaine “clarified” (i.e., “contradicted”) his prior remarks to claim he was only asserting our God-given rights required legal protections to ensure them. Yeah, sure he did.
What both the internally dominant DSA and progressive sects of the Democrat Party reveal is an American political party that aspires to be a radical left-wing European socialist party. You have no constitutional rights a vote cannot infringe and abolish; you have no private property; the language and foundational principles of America are hollowed out, rendering them meaningless or, worse, perverted beyond recognition; and, as we saw during the COVID pandemic and the Obama and Biden administrations’ weaponization of government, we have a dystopian “our democracy” where the secular, one-party-divined civil religion is assiduously enforced and dissent is mercilessly crushed.
So, remember: whenever the left projects and deflects and accuses you of being a “fascist,” they are merely announcing their betrayal of our nation’s unifying foundational principles and their adherence to the alien European concept of socialism. Like a good goalie, recognize their play, keep your eye on the puck, and make the save of our constitutional republic.
An American Greatness contributor, the Hon. Thaddeus G. McCotter (M.C., Ret.) served Michigan’s 11th Congressional District from 2003-2012. He served as Chair of the Republican House Policy Committee and as a member of the Financial Services, Joint Economic, Budget, Small Business, and International Relations Committees. Not a lobbyist, he is also a contributor to Chronicles, a frequent public speaker and moderator for public policy seminars, and a co-host of “John Batchelor: Eye on the World” on CBS radio, among sundry media appearances.