Some say history doesn’t repeat, but it does rhyme. A little over 100 years ago, we faced another socialist threat in America. There was a national Socialist Party run by Eugene Debs. There was a growing anarchist movement as well. An anarchist assassinated President William McKinley in 1901.
 
After World War I, President Woodrow Wilson ordered a massive crackdown on the growing socialist and anarchist movements. That effort was led by Attorney General Mitchell Palmer and became known as the “Palmer Raids.” Thousands of anarchists and socialists were arrested across the country. More than 550 people were deported.
 
Ironically, the American Civil Liberties Union was born out of the concerns over civil rights violations that occurred during the Palmer Raids. But it wasn’t just the government cracking down on a political movement or party. What is often left out of many history books is the full extent of the left-wing violence that was taking place across the country.
 
In 1919 and 1920, anarchists and communists carried out a series of terrorist attacks against high-profile political and business figures. One bombing on Wall Street killed 38 people. One of the political targets was Attorney General Palmer. In the summer of 1919, a bomb destroyed the front of Palmer’s house in Washington, D.C.
 
This left-wing violence was also happening in the middle of the communist revolution in Russia, which saw the tsar and his family brutally murdered. There were violent communist uprisings across Europe. Many Americans feared that revolution would be exported to the United States.
 
Socialism and Marxism are growing in the United States today. The hearings taking place this week for Charlie Kirk’s assassin remind us of the intolerance and violence that permeates the Left and always seeks to silence dissent. Now add radical Islam to this volatile mix.
 
That’s the real danger to democracy in America, not Donald Trump.