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The phrase “Red Diaper Baby” describes individuals raised by parents deeply committed to the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) or other far-left movements. The term “Red” signifies communism, and “diaper baby” highlights the early immersion in ideological training. These children are often exposed from a young age to socialist, anti-American, and Marxist perspectives, frequently participating in union rallies, radical educational programs, or political demonstrations with their activist parents.

In contemporary politics, “Red Diaper Baby” serves as a useful framework for understanding how radical ideologies are passed down through generations within the leadership of the Democratic Party, where many figures have been shaped by the beliefs of their radical parents. Before exploring the example of Zohran Mamdani, let’s examine a few notable cases.

Kamala Harris: Kamala’s father, Donald Harris, is a self-identified Marxist economist who taught at Stanford University and has consistently criticized capitalism while advocating for democratic socialism. In his 1978 book, Capital Accumulation and Income Distribution, dedicated to Kamala, Harris argued that Marx’s framework “remains today as a powerful basis” for analyzing the dynamics of capitalist economic growth.

Barack Obama: In his memoir Dreams from My Father, Barack Obama recounts his childhood mentorship under Frank Marshall Davis, a confirmed CPUSA member and one of the early “Black Bolsheviks” in 1930s Chicago. In the 1940s, Davis was dispatched to Hawaii by COMINTERN to organize a dockworkers’ strike aimed at weakening the U.S. Navy’s presence in Hawaii, facilitating Soviet influence in Southeast Asia. Davis later worked as a journalist for the communist publication The Honolulu Record. He was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee and invoked the Fifth Amendment. In my 2012 documentary Dreams from My Real Father, I provided substantial evidence suggesting that Davis, whom Obama closely resembles, was not only his ideological mentor but possibly his biological father.

Pete Buttigieg: Pete Buttigieg’s father, Joseph Buttigieg, was a Marxist English professor at the University of Notre Dame and a prominent advocate of Antonio Gramsci, the Italian communist whose theories of cultural hegemony laid the groundwork for Western Marxist thought. Gramsci proposed that Marxists could gain power by transforming cultural norms and values. (Is it mere coincidence that Mamdani addresses fellow Democrats as “Comrades”? Is this the future America wants?)