Left-Wing Group Pushing for ‘Third Reconstruction’

Joseph Simonson of the Washington Free Beacon highlights a disturbing new left-wing campaign.

A left-wing advocacy group funded by George Soros and backed by 30 House Democrats is planning a yearlong campaign for a “Third Reconstruction” that includes abolishing ICE, expanding welfare for illegal immigrants, and removing criminal penalties for violent protesters.

The Poor People’s Campaign, which received a grant from the Soros-backed Open Society Foundations following the death of George Floyd as part of the organization’s $220 million “anti-racist” initiative, held a Day of Action on Monday to kick off its crusade. The group counts Democratic Reps. Cori Bush (D., Mo.), Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.), and Jamie Raskin (D., Md.) as top supporters, with the “Third Reconstruction” described to the Washington Free Beacon by a senior GOP Senate aide as the “next Green New Deal.”

Neither the Poor People’s Campaign nor the Open Society Foundations returned requests for comment.

In a release announcing the grant, which reached the Poor People’s Campaign through one of its “anchor organizations,” the Open Society Foundations touted groups “fighting for an end to policing as we know it.” Alex Soros, deputy chair of the Open Society Foundations, added, “This is the time for urgent and bold action to address racial injustice in America.”

The “Third Reconstruction” includes a laundry list of far-left demands such as automatic voter registration, a single-payer health care system, a reparations commission, and “relief from student debt, housing debt, utilities debt, medical debt, and other household and personal debt that cannot be paid.” Despite proposing that the dozen-plus programs, estimated to cost well into the trillions of dollars, be financed “using deficit spending,” the “Third Reconstruction” calls for a 10 percent cut to the military budget. …

… On Monday, the group announced a protest against Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) over his decision not to support H.R. 1, a bill that radically overhauls how the nation conducts elections.