A new communist party is set to launch in Minneapolis next month
Apparently, one of the perks of writing about Minneapolis communists is getting on their email distribution lists.
A press release arrived in the office email this week from an outfit calling themselves the Revolutionary Communists of America (RCA).
His Master’s Voice?
The local RCA chapter is announcing a local rally early next month in support of the national launch of the party,
[RCA] will be holding a rally and march on Saturday, April 6th, starting at 1pm at the Minneapolis City Hall. This event will proclaim the founding of the RCA, a new political party, while denouncing the Democratic and Republican Parties.
They just appear to be Democrats in a hurry, based on their platform,
which includes implementing a 20-hour workweek with no loss in pay, an end to unemployment, a national minimum wage of $1,250 per week, and universal healthcare.
That works out to a minimum hourly wage of $62.50. Of course, the platform also includes the inevitable support for Hamas, and nationalizing banks, etc.
Confusingly, from a branding standpoint, the RCA press release links to a site named socialistrevolution.org.
More confusingly, the RCA Twitter (X) account links to a different web address communistusa.org.
The group is hoping for a crowd of 200 in Minneapolis. Given good weather, I’ll be betting the over on that one.
Minnesota’s Democrats (styled as the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party, DFL) were seen as too moderate. So, an outfit called the Twin Cities Democratic Socialists of America (TC DSA) organized a takeover of the city councils of Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Now RCA says that DSA is too moderate and makes an explicit appeal to the Zoomer vote.
But is there room for yet another communist/socialist party in Minnesota? The signs are mixed.
In the state’s Democratic Presidential primary this month, “uncommitted” finished a respectable 2nd, backed by the local DSA among others. Uncommitted received nearly 46,000 votes, statewide, capturing almost one-fifth (18.9 percent) of the Democratic votes cast, gaining more than twice as many votes as native-son candidate Congressman Dean Phillips.
There is currently no officially-recognized statewide socialist or communist party in Minnesota. In 2022, a candidate for governor qualified for the ballot under the Socialist Workers banner and gained about 7,200 votes out of about 2.5 million cast. That candidate, Gabrielle Prosser, also ran as a Socialist Workers candidate for Minneapolis city council’s Ward 11 last year. She got 460 votes (less than 8 percent) as runner-up in a two-candidate field.
In the 2020 presidential election in Minnesota, two socialist candidates qualified for the ballot. The better of the two efforts earned 1,210 votes, well behind independent Kanye West’s 7,940.
But they tell me that real communism has never been tried.
¡Viva La Revolución!