The Radical Left’s Moral Inversion: From Class Politics to Identity Dogma Is a Trojan Horse with Dangerous Consequences

By Paul Vallas

January 18th, 2026

The contemporary far left has abandoned class-based politics in favor of a rigid moral framework that divides society into permanent victims and villains, with “white supremacy” cast as the root of nearly every injustice. This “oppressed vs. oppressor” worldview is not a movement for justice but a modern-day Trojan Horse—an inviting vessel through which radical ideologies infiltrate Western discourse, weaken democratic institutions, and revive authoritarian ambitions.

Inside that horse, coexisting in concealment, are forces determined to undermine and ultimately subjugate the West.

The term Trojan Horse refers to something that appears noble or harmless but conceals destructive intent—a reference to the ancient Greek ruse in which soldiers hid within a wooden horse to infiltrate and conquer the city of Troy. Applied here, it describes how radical leftists and Islamist extremists hide behind moral language and social justice rhetoric to penetrate and corrode Western democratic systems from within.

What presents itself as a struggle for equity and inclusion is, in fact, a coordinated effort to replace individualism with collectivism and moral pluralism with ideological conformity. The “oppressed vs. oppressor” narrative provides the cover: it appeals to compassion and fairness while carrying within it a toxic fusion of far-left dogma and Islamist extremism. Wrapped in the language of justice, it seeks to exchange liberal democracy for dogma-driven control.

While this alliance presents itself as a partnership for liberation the bond between the far left and Islamist fundamentalists is forged not in shared ideals but in shared hatred—of Western civilization, capitalism, and perceived colonialism. For radicals on the far left, the West represents systemic oppression; for Islamists, it symbolizes moral decay and an obstacle to religious domination. Together, they occupy the Trojan Horse that advances under the banner of justice, using moral language to disguise their intent to dismantle the foundations of democracy and replace them with coercive, illiberal alternatives.

From Class Conflict to Identity Dogma

Historically, leftist politics revolved around class: who owns capital, who earns wages, and how legal and economic systems shape opportunity. That debate was grounded in material realities—jobs, education, housing, and mobility—and often served working-class Americans well.

Over time, however, class analysis gave way to an absolutist moral ideology built around identity. “Systems of oppression” are now defined almost entirely in racial terms, with “white supremacy” invoked as a universal explanation for complex social problems. Attempts to introduce nuance—such as examining internal dysfunctions or leadership failures within marginalized communities—are dismissed as “racism” or “victim-blaming.”

This new creed builds a moral fortress around its leaders, shielding them from accountability and scrutiny. The same moral blindness that excuses internal failures within communities also enables silence toward atrocities committed by ideological allies abroad.

White Supremacy as Universal Scapegoat

In this worldview, white people become metaphors for every global injustice—colonialism, capitalism, border enforcement, policing. History is flattened into moral theater, depicting Western civilization as uniquely malicious while ignoring centuries of non-Western conquest and slavery. Each disagreement is reframed not as a solvable issue but as evidence of latent racism.

This identity-centered politics replaces outcomes with outrage. When policing is seen only as racial oppression, communities most desperate for safety bear the greatest cost. When academic rigor is dismissed as “white supremacy,” minority children suffer lowered expectations.

The Dishonest Equation of Zionism and Colonialism

A central pillar of this ideology equates Zionism with European colonialism. Israel is portrayed as a white settler state displacing indigenous people—a distortion that fuels antisemitism by falsely linking Jewish self-determination to racial oppression. It erases Jewish origins in the Middle East and centuries of continuous presence in the land of Israel.

By casting Jews as “white colonizers,” this ideology justifies violence against civilians as “anti-colonial resistance.” Denying Israel’s founding as an anti-colonial act after the Holocaust, it weaponizes moral language to invert victim and aggressor—a deceptive tactic carried into Western discourse through that same Trojan horse of identity politics.

Rehabilitation of Failed Socialism

The “oppressor vs. oppressed” model also works to resuscitate discredited socialist and communist projects. By shifting the struggle from class to identity—race, gender, sexuality—it widens the revolutionary base and cloaks radical collectivism in moral legitimacy. Critical theory and intersectional ideology replace economic reasoning with militant moralism, recasting culture itself as an oppressive system in need of dismantling.

This transformation persuades people they are oppressed by invisible power structures, breeding resentment and revolutionary zeal. It targets not only economic structures but the moral and civic institutions of the West—faith, family, law, and education. Thus, the Trojan horse advances again: disguised as compassion, it carries a blueprint for dismantling the very institutions that sustain liberty.

The Left’s Alliance with Radical Islam and Its Silence About Islamic Atrocities

The most striking act of moral inversion is the left’s accommodation of Islamist extremism within its “oppressed” coalition. By portraying violent fundamentalists as victims of Western imperialism, far-left movements offer legitimacy to forces that crush dissent, persecute women, criminalize homosexuality, and preach antisemitism. The atrocities of jihadist groups—including Hamas’s October 7, 2023 massacre of Israeli civilians—are framed as “responses” to colonialism, while the Iranian regime’s brutality toward women and protesters is largely ignored.

Consider the long record of crimes against humanity that draw near-total silence from progressive voices: the Assad regime in Syria slaughtering over 200,000 of its own citizens and abducting nearly 100,000 more who vanished; the murder of over 100,000 Christians and the burning of 19,000 churches in Nigeria; Hamas’s execution of Gazan Palestinians following the cease-fire; and the Iranian regime’s medieval suppression of protestors—in which thousands have been killed, imprisoned, or disappeared since 1979.

Iran’s ruling clerics have crushed six major uprisings since the Islamic Revolution, each marked by systemic murder and imprisonment. There were no Western demonstrations when the mullahs killed 5,000 and jailed 15,000 in response to protests over the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, the Kurdish woman beaten for not wearing a hijab. Today, at least 2,000 more Iranians have been killed and thousands detained in new waves of protest.

The hard left in the U.S. once decorated their X posts with Ukrainian flags, but where is their concern for the people of Iran? The far left’s silence in the West is not accidental—it is the price of maintaining the illusion that all opposition to the West is virtuous. This, too, is the Trojan horse at work: guarding barbarism with the shield of moral relativism.

The Cost to Truth, Accountability, and Justice

A politics based on permanent categories of oppressor and oppressed poisons the foundations of free society—truth and justice. When moral judgment precedes evidence, inquiry becomes taboo, and debate devolves into accusation rather than analysis. By treating “structural racism” as the sole explanation for every failure, ideological leaders shield themselves from criticism.

The economic collapse of socialist regimes in Cuba and Venezuela or the human rights atrocities of Iran and Syria are excused in the name of ideological loyalty. The same denial sustains failing schools, unsafe neighborhoods, and unaccountable governance here at home—local casualties of a larger Trojan deception.

Restoring a Politics of Common Humanity

The public must recognize that the radical left and its Islamist allies are not movements of liberation but of domination—one secular, one religious. Both use moral rhetoric as the Trojan horse for authoritarian control. Their alliance seeks to replace liberal democracy with systems that subordinate the individual to ideology and silence dissent about the atrocities committed in their name.

True justice requires consistent moral standards. Atrocities committed by Islamists, left-wing revolutionaries, or right-wing extremists must be condemned equally. Equality and opportunity cannot rest on collective guilt or selective outrage.

To restore trust and civic unity, politics must return to first principles: equality of opportunity, safety, education, and democratic accountability. Western institutions are imperfect but vital—they are the walls protecting liberty from every new Trojan horse disguised as justice and compassion.

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Paul Vallas formerly ran the public school systems in Chicago, Philadelphia and the Louisiana Recovery School District. He was a candidate for Mayor of Chicago.

Comments 35

  2. You’re fooling yourself if you honestly believe it’s only the ‘hard left’ that espouses the so called morality of oppressor/oppressed ideology. It’s mainstream in the democrats, especially among young people. And if you’re really honest with yourself, you should consider if there actually is a difference between framing political policies around class as compared to oppressor/oppressed. Both have, at their root, a juxtaposition of ‘the haves’ and ‘the have nots’. Why is Israel hated? They are successful and therefore wealthy. Why are ‘oppressors’ vilified? They are successful and therefore wealthy. The only real difference between calling the wealthy and successful ‘upper class’ as opposed to ‘oppressor’ is the demeaning verbiage. The attitude is the same. Both distinctions are based in plain, pure envy. Personal accountability, responsibility and deserving to keep what is yours don’t matter. Envy motivates us to focus solely on outcome, not opportunity. Equal outcome is never possible. Wealth changes all the time, even within one person’s lifetime. Equal opportunity is possible but it is the opposite of government intervening to more ‘equally’ distribute wealth.

    2. Dear friend Martha:
      I’d love it if you would pick up the torch and write on this subject. Different views are welcome. We are men of the West and the ground is crumbling underfoot. You know where to reach me, and you don’t even have to cook for me one of your fabulous roast beef dinners
      JK

  3. Absolutely true, Mr. Vallas!

    The question is, have enough Americans woken up to what’s going on? There appear to be a few green shoots of sanity returning, but the hard left’s “long march”, which began decades ago is just about completed, and the deep state is deeper and more far reaching than any of us could have imagined. The American experiment is under serious attack, and the enemy walks among us disguised as virtue.

      1. They were transformational, just not in a good way. Notice the vague language used by Leftists. Hope, change, fundamental transformation, comprehensive reform. It is purposefully ambiguous.
        The reason the Left never criticizes Islamists is that they are cowards.
        They understand criticizing Catholicism or Judaism will not result in retaliation. They do fear this, however, from the radical Islamists and radical Leftists.

        1. Partially, but not fully. The reason the left doesn’t criticize Islam is because they’re allies in the bringing down of the west. They think that once they gain permanent control, they can control or eliminate their former allies.

          The Communists in Iran thought the same thing when they made common cause with the mullahs to overthrow the Shah.

  4. Well written, logical and understandable.
    But…the leaders of this movement fully understand that the people that they preach to are weak in thought and character. One of their handmaidens to this perversion: our educators. The very people who in the past were entrusted to help sharpen our youth’s minds and the help them build character have become a tool to the perversion we see today. The rot that exists in education, to me, will be the hardest to overcome if we want to get back to any sense of real normalcy.

  5. I got a Liberal Arts degree. I don’t think I was close to being educated until I read the entirety of “The Great Books of the Western World” from the University of Chicago. I used the suggested way of going through them that was supposed to take ten years. It took me fifteen years, reading on the train to and from work. I’m not sure most college graduates in the last sixty or so years would be able to read any of those books. I don’t think they could see any value in them. I’m reminded of a term from years ago, “DWEM.” Dead While European Males.

    1. Daniel
      I had my parents buy me TGBWW in high school. I too took years to read most of it. It was well worth it. I just recently donated it to the library after having it over 60 years.
      The educational system has failed us. In college, professors used to have a number of texts to read (non science) for a course. Now maybe one, if that.
      And Paul is right about the lefts indoctrination. One is not suppose to think on your own but accept what you are told. But it works both ways.

  7. Good morning John. I pray you had a great Name’s Day on the 7th. The Radical Left has bought the Government and they want to run America. We American Citizens do not seem to have any rights anymore. If we do not agree with them we are Racists when actually they are and are in it for the money and power. I do not understand the stupidity of people allowing them to run one of the greatest Countries God ever evented. Trust the Lord and stay away from people that gossip and do not know what friendship means. I do not understand why people do go to Church with hatred in their heart for their friends or neighbors. Christ said love your neighbor as yourself.

  8. Reading this brilliant, important essay by Paul Vallas, I found myself thinking that nearly three years ago Chicago could have elected him mayor. Instead they chose a career CTU flunky who obviously lacked the intelligence and temperament to run a hot dog stand (and would slather each dog with ketchup). His big career accomplishment was pushing ruinous teachers strikes, for crying out loud.

    Vallas’ Trojan Horse analogy here is strong. Going forward a couple millennia, you could analogize an entire empire falling at the hands of emperors like Claudius and Caligula, who were fatally stupid and pawns of corruption. If that governance sounds like a bad bet for Chicagoans to keep making now, maybe they should pick a different horse.

    1. Yes, agreed David. Thought exactly the same…Chicago could have had this intelligent person as mayor, and instead they elected Mayor 6%. Well done, Chicago!

  9. David: the people of Chicago chose a witless boob to be their mayor. Brandon Johnson suffers from paranoid delusions and Boss Preckwinkle (who is up for re-election) leads him by his clown nose. He’s a fool and Chicago deserves him.
    JK

    1. As long as the stupid asses of the CTU run this city it is doomed. Vallas put the fear of God in them and they came out full force to defeat him. It will happen again. There is no middle class left in Chicago, just the politically stupid.

    2. JK: I kinda liked my “CTU flunky,” “dog with ketchup,” and fatally stupid emperors. But your “witless boob,” Boss-led “clown nose” and deserved fool are much better. Maybe great commentary is better educated by your old-Chicago streets than by my Glen Ellyn “Castle on the Hill.”

  11. The unholy confluence of circumstances that brought Ayers, Angela Davis et al into classrooms preaching from Rules for Radicals was a force multiplier of the bi-partisan “China Class” hollowing out of America’s manufacturing base.
    Kissinger, Bushes, Blum/Feinstein, Clinton wih the China entrance into the WTO and Favored Nation status enriched elites of the DC political class as well as the CCP.
    It impoverishes yet those descended from the vanishing middle class now needing convincing that capitalism in fact is NOT corrupt. The above facts frustrate that effort.

  12. Bravo! Paul Vallas, whether writing about the condition of the City Of Chicago or here, about the world situation, speaks the truth in a way that all should be able to grasp. The “oppressor vs. oppressed” model is being pushed and gobbled up by too many deluded people. We are deeply in trouble as a nation and as a world.

  13. The last admin left us with a mess to clean up. I used an analogy of milk spilled on the floor to a friends FB Post. Are you going to clean it up or are you going to let it sit curdle and stink up the kitchen. Obama deported huge numbers but barely a peep. Now it elicits riots. The unimaginable corruption in MN with a man (TT) who could have been vice president. —- What COULD have gone wrong? And the MN outrage is nothing more than a distraction to the uncovered corruption. Suitcases of money to Dubai and beyond in a regular basis. NO ONE MINDING THE STORE.
    Simply Thank you to Paul and John.

  14. Paul,
    As you said: “To restore trust and civic unity, politics must return to first principles: equality of opportunity, safety, education, and democratic accountability.” And there’s the rub, how do we accoumplish this monumental undertaking? I submit we shut down social media for 72 hours, and “reset” the system, for I submit the Trojan Horse of today is social media. The monster inserts itself into seemingly innocent discussions, issues, blogs or posts, thinly vailed as “freedom of speech” until it rallies posters or readers to get off their butts to go out and “demonstrate,” (albeit peacefully) with more and more violence each time – against everything! (Interesting that a root of demonstrate is “demon!”) I don’t have the answer, but I worry we’re already fighting another civil war, the magnitude of which we have never seen….I pray I’m wrong, but I don’t know how we stop this wrong headed train…thankyou for your wisdom…

  15. Thanks John Kass and Paul Vallas for this excellent Sunday column.
    Paul writes : “This new creed builds a moral fortress around its leaders, shielding them from accountability and scrutiny.”

    We see it in Illinois, with boring idiotic rhetoric from Pritzker and Brandon Johnson. Copycat officials across the nation are following their devious pattern.

    Consider the weepy police chief of Portland OR, crying on camera because gang-members are in jail for attempted murder of Border Patrol officers by repeated ramming with a truck.
    Woke chief Bob Day is heart-broken that “Sanctuary City” immunity for vicious criminals takes a back seat to federal law.

    Portland Democrats pander to the violent mobs who attack ICE officers month after month.
    No arrests are made, so the hate groups return every night . . https://www.christianpost.com/news/police-chief-cries-confirms-tren-de-aragua-ties-in-cbp-shooting.html

  16. That explanation was one of the most intellectually brilliant and understandable essays I have ever read. Thank you ,Paul Vallas! What a shame the morons in Chicago failed to elect you Mayor.

    1. Chicago voters appear too stupid to understand any of what Vallas states here or are just too lazy to vote in their elections. How many voters came out to vote in the mayoral election? I seem to remember it was something like 18%.

  17. “The history of all hitherto society is the history of class struggles.”– The opening sentence in Karl Marx’s “The Communist Manifesto .” The “oppressor and oppressed” has a long history. To continue in the Manifesto: “Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guildmaster and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, that each time ended, either in the revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.”
    Does it sound familiar? An old quote and now the oft-repeated BS by the far left.

  18. Pakistani UK rape gangs lure British girls as young as 14 into sex slavery, and UK Pakistani men are taught to do this at their mosques. The Brits who speak up about these atrocities risk being jailed. Sadly, more UK Pakistani babies are being born than native Brits.

    The more I learn about Islam, the more I’m convinced it is not only incompatible with Western civilization but actually engaged in a centuries long cold war. Not at the fringes. At its essence.

  22. I have questions:

    What is gained by preaching to the choir?
    Would the average person who is a voter in Chicago and Illinois be able to read (and more importantly comprehend) Mr. Valas’ essay in it’s entirety?
    Is Mr. Valas getting set to run for office again?
    Are CPS former students any smarter after Valas’ tenure?
    If as proclaimed Mr. Valas is a lifelong democrat isn’t that a bad thing for all of us opposed to democrat values?

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