The Daily Signal - Katharine Gorka on the Next Generation of Marxism

Episode Date: May 13, 2024

The protests in the summer of 2020 after George Floyd’s death in police custody and today's antisemitic, pro-Palestine protests on college campuses are rooted in the same ideology of Marxism, Katharine Gorka says.  Marxism preaches that the world "is divided between oppressor and oppressed,” says Gorka, co-author with Heritage Foundation scholar Mike Gonzalez of the new book “NextGen Marxism: What It Is and How to Combat It.” (Heritage launched The Daily Signal in 20014.) German-born philosopher Karl Marx believed that the oppressors were the business owners and the oppressed were the workers. But Gorka says that Marxism today, or “NextGen Marxism,” holds that the “oppressors are white, Americans, Israelis, [but] some Asians … kind of the successful." "And the oppressed is everybody else, right?" she asks rhetorically. "Anybody who's a minority of any sort, whether it's based on race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, [or] having once been colonized.” This movement of Marxism today has its roots in the 1960s, Gorka explains, as the student activists of those says became the community organizers who influence young people today, often via social media.  Gorka joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to outline the progression of Marxism and to discuss philanthropy's significant role in furthering Marxist ideology in America. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Monday, May 13th. I'm Virginia Allen. What are the protests of 2020 and the pro-Palestine protests that we're seeing right now have in common? They're being driven by a movement that supports and promotes Marxism. That's according to Katie Gorka. Katie is the co-author with Mike Gonzalez of the brand new book NextGen Marxism, What It Is and How to Combat It. Katie joins me on today's show, to discuss how Marxist ideology began taking hold in America back in the 1960s and why the protests

that we're seeing today are the results of a large pro-Marxist movement. Stay tuned for our conversation after this. Looking for quick conservative policy solutions to current issues from America's outpost here in Washington, sign up for Heritage's weekly newsletter, The Agenda. You'll get top conservative research, a rundown of important events happening here at Heritage that you you can watch online and hot takes from our experts. Sign up at heritage.org slash agenda or at the link in the show notes. Well, I am so excited to have with us in studio today. Katie Gorka, she is the co-author of the brand new book, NextGen Marxism,

What It Is and How to Combat It. Thank you so much, Katie, for being here. So fun to be back here. Well, it's great to have you back. Like you said, you're great to be back here because you used to work at Heritage. It used to be in this building every day. You also previously served as a presidential appointee in the Office of Policy and the Department of Homeland Security. And before that, you also served as president of threat knowledge group from 2014 to 2017.

You have a lot of experience in the world of policy and politics. And you have put much of that knowledge into this brand new book, NextGen Marxism. You co-authored this with Mike Gonzalez. And the timing, we were just talking about this, the timing of this book release is really fascinating. You all referenced in the book the fact that we saw these widespread protests after George Floyd's death in 2020. And that sparked this movement of really violent protests across America. Well, now on college campuses for the past month, we have seen the same rise of protests often violent. What was the impetus for you all?

as you looked out at the landscape of America. First off, when you started writing this, you didn't know what was going to be happening in April and May of 2024. But why did you all decide, okay, we've seen what happened in 2020. We're watching the way the culture is going. We need to write a book on what you're calling

next generation Marxism. Yeah, so I would say there were three things that we saw. One was the 1619 project, which was published by the New York Times in August of 2019. That was the first. I would say major public salvo in the culture war telling us that we are systemically racist and systemically and irreconcilably racist right and so when I came to heritage the following January I was kind of led the effort to

push back on the 1619 project we had a very very robust pushback with lots of other organizations including many left-leaning historians I mean many people took issue with the flaws of that effort. The second thing was, of course, the George Floyd protests, many of them violent, very destructive. And then the third piece, of course, was the COVID shutdown. And that was when parents started really waking up to what they were seeing in the schools. And so it was these three things. And Mike and I just kept bumping into each other in the hallways and saying, we've got to, we've got to do more. You know, we need to. We need to be able to explain to people how did we arrive at a place where our country is so unrecognizable to so many people, but also we have to do a better job, we on the right, of putting tools into the hands of everyday Americans so that they can fight this. Because this does have to be fought in our communities as well as into our state houses and into our capital. I want to talk about how we got here. And in talking about that, I think it's important to define what exactly you mean by next-gen Marxism.

Because as you referenced in the book, a lot of people when they hear that word, Marxism, think of Soviet air Marxism. And that's not quite what we're seeing right now. It's a little different. Right. So Marxism, as you know, I would say two distinct kind of elements to it. One is, it's an economic theory, right? It's a theory that says, you know, Marx's theory of value and this kind of thing, you know, where he said you have the world divided into oppressor and oppressed.

The oppressors were those who, the business owners, the oppressed were the workers. And he believed that the owners were purely exploitive of the workers and the workers would rise up and revolt. That's sort of one element of Marx. But the other really important element is that it is a world view that sees the world as a zero-sum thing, right? That the world is irreconcilably divided between two halves. Now, what ended up happening was the workers never did revolt, ever anywhere. They just didn't, right?

What we've learned time and time again is workers like their work. They want to keep working. Now, they certainly might want better conditions, but what Marx failed to predict was that capitalism itself would deliver those better conditions. Conditions improved continually, and to this day they continue to improve, right? So that sort of went away. But what ended up happening was that many people still sort of latched on to Marx's idea of a divided world.

And that's what you still see today. So you still, what you see in next-gen Marxism is they believe the world is divided between oppressor and oppressed. But today the oppressors are white, Americans, Israelis, some Asians, right? You know, kind of the successful. And the oppressed is everybody else, right? Anybody who's a minority of any sort, whether it's based on race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, having once been colonized, you know, there are all kinds of things. So you get this is sort of what we call next-gen Marxism. Okay.

And who's driving it? Yeah, you know, this is the really good question and this is something that it's been, it's really been interesting these last, especially these last few days. as arrests have been made on campuses. So the last number I saw, I'm sure it's higher by now, the last number I saw was over 2,000 arrests on 44 campuses. But the interesting thing about arrests is you then see who's getting arrested, right? And you can learn from that. And so what they're discovering is, first of all,

about half of the people on these campuses are not, in fact, students. They are from outside organizations. They are outside agitators. maybe half are students. So who's driving this? It's, you know, so I will say there was a great article. I don't know if you've seen it. There was a great article just a couple days ago in the tablet

that did a really deep dive on funders and individuals and that kind of thing. And the author made a great point where he said there really isn't one super mastermind behind this whole thing, right, which is an important point to make. But there are many critical pieces. And so I would say, first of all, you know, one of the most important pieces, and this is something Mike and I really talk about a lot in the book, is the student radicals of the 60s who then went into the universities and went into community organizing. Their fingerprints are all over this. They are still out there. They're still kicking.

They have trained many of the people who are out there today. So, you know, you've got to talk about that part. But then you've got to talk about that whole sort of next generation, which were the critical race theorists, right? Those were the students of the 60s radicals who then said, okay, white legal scholars, you guys need to step back from the fight. It's our turn now. And that was the whole creation of critical race theory in 1989. But then another piece, and this is also super important, is something that we also really sort of do a deep dive on in the book is, our foreign enemies very much have their hands on this as well.

So European Marxists, South American Marxists, China, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, you know, they've been sort of working together for years, particularly, you know, through the Sao Paulo Forum, through, you know, the World Social Forum, various kind of international meetings that take place and movements. And they said they really encouraged the Americans who were participating, you guys need to do more at home. And it led directly to the formation of various groups here in the United States. Black Lives Matter was there, came out of that. And so again, when you look, when you do a deep dive today on who's on the campuses, you see the foreign influences. You see also the Islamists.

but you see the domestic Marxists. And I think the other piece that we just have to mention that we don't talk about enough are the funders. So Mike and I wrote a piece for Heritage before we wrote our book called The Radicalization of Race, Philanthropy and DEI. Our big foundations like Ford, Hewlett, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, they've been funding DEI for decades. And they are still involved in funding sort of some of the groups that are involved now in these protests. And there are others that are involved. Hyde's Foundation is a big one that's got his hands all over this. I personally think it's a time for a serious reckoning with our philanthropic community.

You know, it's, I know it's kind of sacrosanct, and I know that I'm sitting here in a place that depends on philanthropy. but it has become such a huge part of our culture. These foundations control billions of dollars, and they're basically accountable to no one. So I think we need to look at it. It's really interesting to hear you lay out some of the history because it's easy to kind of look at the past four years. They're like, whoa, where did this come from?

But it's not new. It goes all the way back to the 1960s, and what was happening at the universities, has carried through. When you look at where we are today and what's happening, what's the trajectory that we're on? Because it's obvious that things are just almost like with every generation heightening, heightening, heightening, and you can sort of see it in waves. But it doesn't seem like it's slowed down. If anything, it's just gaining momentum. Where are we headed? It has felt that way. you know, what we're seeing is unique. It's new. We don't have anything really to go on,

except every other country that has sort of gone on a similar path of moving towards socialism and Marxism, they all always end up collapsing on themselves. Okay, China hasn't quite yet, but I'm certain that it will, right? because it is such a destructive, self-destructive ideology. And, you know, one of the most interesting things about it is socialism, Marxism, they always end up eating their own. I mean, it's the people at the center that often get, you know, knocked off, killed off, assassinated first. So I think you're, I think, I think we're going to see the collapse of the, you know,

this movement. But I don't feel 100% certain about that because it does really trouble me the degree of intellectual uniformity on our colleges and universities. And if I have just one prayer for my country at this stage, it is that this brings about a major reckoning amongst parents who I think really need to think harder about where they're willing to write checks. And so, send their kids for their college education. Yeah. Yeah, I was interested Robert Kraft, who owns the Patriots, with all of the protests of Columbia. He went to Columbia University, and he came out with a statement saying, at least for now,

I'm pausing my donations to Columbia. And you mentioned that philanthropic realm, and you think about the implications and the power, whether we like it or not, money talks and it has a lot of power. And if we saw many individuals who were not okay with anti-Semitism, not okay with this radical left Marxist ideology, begin to actually make their voice known with their wallets, with their pocketbooks, I think the implications could be huge. And I don't think people should feel that they have to be a major philanthropist for their voice to matter. I think any parent, any alumni, has the right to call a school and say, this is unacceptable. You know, whether they're giving the school money or not, it doesn't matter. If you've got a relationship to the school, let your voice be heard, speak out.

Yeah, critical. So what are other ways that individuals can be a part of the solution? I love the fact that you end the book talking about not just leaving us at the doom and gloom, when this is where we are, but you actually talk about what are the solutions? How do we move forward on this? Yeah. So I'll just speak from a very personal point of view because when I left Heritage to write the book, I also said, I'm going to get more involved in my community because I recognize that this cannot be solved from Washington. And so I actually just became chair of the Fairfax County GOP because I realized that this all starts in our local communities. You know, we, it, it, it

really, and it's actually really changed my whole perspective on politics because I realized I don't think politics is actually about politicians. I think politics is about community. I think, you know, it's one thing when you're talking about, you know, somebody really big and important like a president, then you really have a chance to get to know them and you do vote for a personality. But I think for the most part, people identify as Republican or Democrat because of their community, because of the community that they're in. And it just takes a tremendous amount of work to build that community. And I will say one of the biggest lessons for me in doing the research for the book is

understanding that the linchpin to the success of first communism in Russia, but elsewhere, Bolshevism, was organizing. They organized. They understood that there is never going to be a spontaneous. revolution. You have to organize for revolution. And I think it's taken us on the right a really long time to recognize the importance of that. And, you know, we don't have some of the same types of groups that the left has, but we have the Republican Party, you know, or we have groups like Heritage. I mean, Heritage is a huge network and it's super, super important to have those

networks and just for every single person to get involved and step up and say, I can do one more thing. On that organizing aspect, it is interesting to see how many of the protests on campuses. I've been on the campus of George Washington University and you see the tents and they all look brand new. And you get the sense of, okay, there's a larger overarching organization that has been involved in some capacity to help pull this off. and the organization of this Marxist movement,

it is impressive just looking at an organizational structure. Like, wow, they have this down. Oh, yeah. And they have it at every level. I mean, if you think about unions, I mean, that's a level of organizing. You know, one of the reasons we have such a hard time in Fairfax County and in Virginia is because of the power and the purse of the unions. And I just, yeah, I mean, I think people have to.

recognize this and say, but we are individuals, we can come together, we can find a way to fight this and we have to. And I'll tell you the other thing is donors on our side need to step up and do more. That's why, again, why I also feel that focusing on the money that's behind this, I can guarantee you we would not have a single protest if it were not for the millions of that has been poured into this by foundations and other groups. This is, I mean, I'll just leave it there. I mean, money is everything. Yeah.

Is there a timeline that we're looking at? I know it's a dangerous thing to sort of start to as, you know, okay, we have X amount of years to get this right. But given the fact that we have watched, as you've laid out since the 1960s, this movement forward, how much time? time do we have left to write the ship? Wow, that's a great question. I mean, you know, who predicted this, right?

None of us predicted this. You know, if you look back at, I think this is a little bit similar to what we saw in the 60s. And, you know, what a lot of people don't realize, they know that we had riots in 67, but what they don't, what many people don't realize is students for democratic society, the leftist students' organization had been fomenting grievances and providing training for a good three years prior to those riots breaking out. Yeah. So, I mean, it was absolutely orchestrated. I think what makes me nervous about our situation right now is that there are so many groups that have been well-funded, that have infrastructure, that have communications, that have ways, and especially with

the addition of social media, have ways. to reach lots and lots of people. I personally think we are going to see a lot more violence before this comes to an end. And I think one thing is going to be really interesting. We'll see if anything happens at the Democratic National Convention this summer, right? We'll be watching that closely. Yeah. The book is NextGen Marxism, What It Is and How to Combat It.

Katie, tell us how we follow your work. Well, I have a new podcast called The Happy Women Podcast. Oh, that's awesome. I love that. Congrats. That's with Salem. That's super fun so they can listen to me there. And I do have a website, katiegorka.orgia.orgia.

And then of course I'm on social media. Excellent. Katie, thank you. Really, really appreciate it and encourage everyone to pick up a copy of NextGen Marxism. Thanks so much, Katie. Thanks for having me. And with that, that's going to do it for today's episode. Thank you for joining us here on the Daily Seagel podcast.

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