The communist comeback
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What is the new “Red Scare” and why is it being discussed now?
Democratic socialists keep winning primary races. In Michigan, Abdel El-Sayed, not in the DSA, but endorsed by them, just won a fiercely fought Senate primary. President Trump appears worried enough about the DSA to have started conflating some things.
I would be the greatest communist in history. I'd be ready to free rent. For the rest of your life, what they don't say is that you'll be living in squalor in 12 months.
The Trump administration has raised the specter of the far left in various ways during Trump's second term. But the recent arrest of an American communist in Spain, what year is it? At the request of the American government is a more concrete step. Coming up on Today Explained from Vox, real communist threat or new red scare?
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This is Today Explained.
I'm Noelle King. The Trump administration has been threatening to go after the far left since Charlie Kirk was killed, but it hasn't always been clear who they mean by that. Then, last month, the U.S. government requested the extradition from Spain of a wealthy American citizen and professed communist named Fergie Chambers. He's a former heir to the Cox Media fortune who accepted about $250 million from his family to more or less leave them alone. He now funds leftist causes. He's given around a million dollars to humanitarian groups in Gaza. The U.S. claims he provided material support for terrorism by sending some of that money to Hamas. David Peisner, a journalist in Atlanta, profiled Fergie Chambers for Rolling Stone.
David, how's this rich kid become a communist?
Well, I mean, he grew up in mostly New York City and grew up in Sconston in a certain amount of privilege.
I came from a very prominent and wealthy U.S. family. And I ended up having a very different background. perception of the world than they do.
He sort of describes his, you know, kind of political education or his political awakening happening as early as really kind of middle school-ish years when a teacher, he was going to St. Anne's School, I think it's called, which is, you know, a sort of, as Stella Schnabel, his wife, put it to me, it's for famous people's children.
Yeah. Yeah, that's about right.
Who is Fergie Chambers and why is his arrest in Spain significant?
But a teacher there had given him Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States.
There were a few kind of big ideological influences. There was a history teacher I had who was kind of a Marxist.
And really sort of challenged him on his family's kind of role in kind of propping up the system we have.
Everything I've ever benefited from comes off the backs of the the workers of the country broadly, especially of colonized people, whether they came from Africa or whether they came from a million other countries or whether they lived here in the first place.
And he took it to heart. He was young then, and I think between then and when he really starts getting going with his own sort of activism, which maybe you can date to about a decade ago from now or maybe a little longer. But he was at Standing Rock, which I guess is what, about 2015, 2016.
A protest in North Dakota against a major oil pipeline continues to grow.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the new “Red Scare” and why is it being discussed now?
0:03–3:51
2
Who is Fergie Chambers and why is his arrest in Spain significant?
3:51–9:17
3
How did Fergie’s upbringing and education shape his communist beliefs?
9:17–14:49
4
What does Fergie actually want for America – revolution or reform?
14:49–24:42
5
How does the U.S. government justify extraditing a wealthy American communist?
24:42–28:36