It may seem, well, Stalinist to accuse the American left—in essence, a fair portion of the Democratic Party—of going Stalinist or using Stalinist tactics, consciously or unconsciously (usually, let’s hope, the latter), but events of the last few years give us little choice.

Calling nearly all their opponents “racists,” as so many “progressive” Democrats do, whether they are or not—and not even seeming to care if this is so—is straight out of Stalin’s NKVD secret police disinformation playbook.

Lying or, equally bad, purposefully ignoring the obvious truth is another similar technique, as virtually all left/liberal media have done regarding the Dayton, Ohio, mass murderer. He was an avowed supporter of leftist presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, although we hear almost no mention of that in “progressive” or even “liberal” quarters (they’re melding), only endless repetition that the El Paso shooter was inspired by Trump, even if he wasn’t.

Missing, too, and equally obvious is that the motivations of such killers are considerably deeper than anybody’s politics. More often than not, they stem from issues far more complex and intractable than the to-and-fro of daily events.

None of this stops the left because, after all, the ends justify the means.

As we draw closer to the truth via the inspector general’s report and, even more, the conclusion of the Department of Justice investigation being conducted by U.S. Attorney John Durham, we’ll find this Stalinism on a higher, indeed national, plane that strikes at the very core of our republic. Although the full extent is not yet known, we’re likely to see the whole Russia probe to have been a plot to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president or, failing that, to tarnish his presidency irrevocably.

How Stalinist is that! As Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin’s notorious chief of secret police, famously put it, “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.” In this case, our president was the man and the bogus claim of Russia collusion was the invented crime.

This clandestine approach to—or should we say sabotage of—the foundations of American life and politics didn’t begin with Trump. It began long ago, even before the Roosevelt years, and has ebbed and flowed since. This recent rise can be dated from 1991 when then Vermont congressman, now presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders helped found the Congressional Progressive Caucus along with Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and a few others. Sanders, at that point, was just back from spending his honeymoon in the Soviet Union.

Joining shortly thereafter was New York congressman Jerrold Nadler, now leading the impeachment chorus against Trump. Sanders, as almost everyone knows, was an avowed socialist, but so also, although it’s lesser known, was Nadler. The New York congressman was a member of several socialist organizations and was the one who convinced President Bill Clinton to commute—during his last days in office—Susan Rosenberg’s sentence.

In 1981, Rosenberg allegedly drove a getaway car for the left-wing terror groups the “Weather Underground” and “Black Liberation Army” after they had robbed a Brink’s truck, killing two policemen and a security guard in the process. Rosenberg got away, but they caught her three years later, this time unloading 740 pounds of explosives and an arsenal of weapons from a car. But 16 years later she had reformed enough for her to go free, according to Nadler.

Of course, there’s a bit of guilt-by-association here but, considering the endless impeachment accusations toward Trump by Nadler and others for nothing even approaching “high crimes and misdemeanors,” assuming they’re real at all, this use of Stalinist tactics must be exposed and ended.

It won’t be easy. With a youth that knows little of history, let alone left-wing history and its incomparably murderous past, our culture is infected. Yet it must be done. We’re at a crunch point.

Roger L. Simon, co-founder and CEO emeritus of PJ Media, is an award-winning author and an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter. His new novel, “The Goat,” is available on Amazon Kindle. Paperback and hardcover to follow on Sept. 1, 2019.