Comrade Casar

Don’t look now, but Austin apparently elected a communist to City Council. That’s the claim, at least, of a recent blog post from statewide conservative advocacy group Empower Texans. The post cited Council Member Greg Casar’s recent speech at a meeting of the Austin chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America party, an event that was apparently also “promoted” by the Communist Party of Travis County (proud owner of 237 “likes” on Facebook). But rather than call for the nationalization of the means of the production in order to avenge the blood of the worker, Casar’s remarks focused on mandating paid sick leave in Austin. Nonetheless, Empower Texans CEO Michael Quinn Sullivan took the post’s claim even further by accusing Casar of being a “card-carrying Communist” on Twitter. Clearly unfazed, Casar retweeted Sullivan with good cheer and even offered a word of gratitude (but missed a fine trolling opportunity by not saying “спасибо”).