National Review’s Combat Newsletter Chronicled Radical Left and Political Violence of the 1960s

Key Takeaways

America’s renewed socialist temptation makes the radical left’s record of violence and failure newly relevant.
traced the money, ideology, and networks connecting generations of radicals — connections mainstream coverage often missed.

Socialism looks in 2026 a lot like bell bottoms: tried on, worn out, and out of fashion.

Decades ago, Germany, Russia, Cambodia, Ethiopia, and points beyond tried to disastrous results. Many American leftists, as judged by the election returns, believe in an American exceptionalism of sorts, too. They think that socialism in the United States will be different. We won’t need a world war, societal collapse, or the obligatory charitable single and accompanying global benefit show to save us from its consequences. Socialism, for its true believers, amounts to salvation and not that from which people living under it require deliverance.

About the Author

Daniel J. Flynn

Daniel J. Flynn, the author of The Man Who Invented Conservatism: The Unlikely Life of Frank S. Meyer, is an American Spectator senior editor, visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, and YouTuber @RightWingWilderness.

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Key Takeaways

America’s renewed socialist temptation makes the radical left’s record of violence and failure newly relevant.
Combat traced the money, ideology, and networks connecting generations of radicals — connections mainstream coverage often missed.
Other nations learned socialism’s lessons through bitter experience. Americans still have the chance to learn by observation.

Socialism looks in 2026 a lot like bell bottoms: tried on, worn out, and out of fashion.

Decades ago, Germany, Russia, Cambodia, Ethiopia, and points beyond tried to disastrous results. Many American leftists, as judged by the election returns, believe in an American exceptionalism of sorts, too. They think that socialism in the United States will be different. We won’t need a world war, societal collapse, or the obligatory charitable single and accompanying global benefit show to save us from its consequences. Socialism, for its true believers, amounts to salvation and not that from which people living under it require deliverance.