The same tired, pathetic tropes, repackaged as something new.

Have you heard about the latest intellectual “awakening” that’s being led by a brand new “progressive” movement called Democracy Awakening? Oh, it’s a real thrill, loaded with a host of bold, fresh ideas that’ll make you downright grateful for the fact that such brilliant folks are looking out for you. Ideas like these:

repealing all Voter ID laws, on the premise that they’re nothing more than racist schemes designed to disenfranchise nonwhite minorities;

overhauling every facet of the criminal-justice system—police, prosecutors, courts, and prisons—on grounds that they are currently infested with racism and discrimination against blacks and Hispanics;

supporting the agendas of the Black Lives Matter movement, which detects white racism lurking around every corner and hiding under every rock;

permitting Washington, DC to have representation in the U.S. House, Senate, and Electoral College, so as to further empower the Democratic Party;

implementing publicly funded elections, thereby preventing citizens and corporations from donating money to the political candidates of their choice;

“striking a blow to the military-industrial complex” by gutting the national defense budget and redirecting those dollars to a bloated welfare state; and

depriving Americans of their Second Amendment right to bear arms.

What’s that you say? You’ve heard all this before, a thousand times, from the mouths of a thousand left-wing activists and political candidates seeking to erode American liberties? Don’t tell that to the good folks at Democracy Awakening. It might hurt their feelings. They kinda like thinking of themselves as intellectual trailblazers.

Democracy Awakening was officially launched a few days ago in Washington, DC, when it led a series of workshops and demonstrations outside the U.S. Capitol—all to promote the ideals and agendas listed above. Among the guest speakers at these events were such notables as Democratic Congressman Raúl Grijalva, an “immigrant-rights” champion who says that “in a perfect, perfect world we’d have an open border”; labor activist Dolores Huerta, a former honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America; Phyllis Bennis, whose Institute for Policy Studies has long supported Communist agendas while publicly smearing the United States as the world’s principal wellspring of evil; and activist Medea Benjamin, a dyed-in-the-wool communist who has lavished praise on Castro’s Cuba, the theocratic hellhole of Iran, and the Hamas barbarians of Gaza.

The list of Democracy Awakening’s nearly 300 member organizations provides further insight into the coalition’s worldview. Among those members are:

There’s nothing new in any of this. Same old talking points. Same old Marxist, anti-American claptrap, dressed up as an “awakening.” At its core, Democracy Awakening is the quintessential embodiment of the Left’s retrogressive ideology—smearing and demeaning one American tradition after another, all for the purpose of expanding government, crushing free enterprise, and shrinking individual liberty.