Communist Party USA members handed out newspapers. The Revolutionary Communists of America unfurled a banner. The Freedom Road Socialist Organization sent a spokesman who praised China and the Soviet Union. And several Minneapolis City Council members stood on a makeshift stage and read a resolution honoring the occasion.
Welcome to May Day in Minneapolis, where elected officials from Minnesota's Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party shared a rally with avowed revolutionaries calling for the seizure of private property, the abolition of ICE, and the end of capitalism itself.
The Friday march, organized as an immigrant rights demonstration under the slogan "Immigrants Rise! Workers Unite!," drew well over 1,000 people through South Minneapolis, Fox News Digital reported. What began as a labor-and-immigration event quickly revealed its ideological core: a parade ground for groups that openly reject the American economic and constitutional order.
Owen Phernetton, a member of the Revolutionary Communists of America, told Fox News Digital his group is "building a party of class fighters." He did not leave his goals vague.
"We need a revolution... on a socialist basis."
Phernetton said the organization supports seizing factories, mines, and office spaces and placing them under ownership of the working class. He argued for "decreasing the workday to only 20 hours a week without any loss in pay." Billionaire wealth, he said, should be "expropriated and put in use for the working class."
Andy Koch of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization told Fox News Digital the United States is "run by billionaires" and should instead be run by working people. When asked about foreign models, Koch pointed overseas.
"China's doing pretty good right now."
Koch also praised the former Soviet Union, saying it had "done a lot for its people." When pressed on whether the movement would accept money from a wealthy donor, Koch was unbothered: "If one billionaire... wants to donate to progressive pro-worker causes, that's great."
That answer carries a particular edge. Fox News Digital has previously identified Neville Roy Singham, a U.S.-born tech entrepreneur who lives in China, as a key figure in a network tied to some far-left groups involved in protests. The scope of Singham's CCP-aligned Marxist influence network raises serious questions about where the money behind these movements originates, and whose interests it serves.
The rally's wish list extended well beyond sloganeering. One speaker during the council-member remarks told the crowd "we must abolish ICE," linking labor issues directly to immigration enforcement. A speaker with the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee led chants of "No one is illegal" and "All power to the people."
An unnamed protester who identified as a communist called the current system a "dead end" and laid out the underlying theory plainly: "The workers create all the value in society and we get to own none of it under capitalism." The group supports capping rent at 10 percent of wages.
When one woman was asked about the well-documented failures of rent-control policies in cities like New York and California, she had a ready explanation: those efforts failed because they were not "under workers' control." Her conclusion was blunt: "Under capitalism, it won't work. We need a society under control of the workers."
Another protester affiliated with the Revolutionary Communists of America said he was "radicalized" in 2020 following the death of George Floyd. He rejected both major parties: "We're calling for down with Trump and down with the Democrats."
The presence of Minneapolis City Council members is the detail that should concern voters most. Council members Jason Chavez, Elliott Payne, Aurin Chowdhury, Soren Stevenson, and Jamal Osman read parts of a non-binding resolution recognizing May 1 as International Workers Day. Council member Robin Wonsley was also present. Most of the attending members are affiliated with the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.
No one forced these elected officials to share a stage with groups calling for the expropriation of private property and the overthrow of capitalism. They chose to. The rally was not a surprise pop-up, it was an organized march promoted well in advance. The council members knew exactly who would be standing beside them, waving red flags and distributing communist literature.
This is not a fringe phenomenon confined to Minneapolis. Sen. John Fetterman recently warned of a "Communist takeover" within Democratic politics in Maine, where an openly Marxist candidate is seeking a Senate nomination. When a sitting Democratic senator uses that language, the movement has moved well past the margins.
An earlier, smaller union-led rally at Government Plaza drew limited turnout on the same day. A union leader at that gathering described it as having "no connection to broader protests", a telling effort to distance organized labor from the harder-left groups that dominated the main march.
The Minneapolis rally did not happen in isolation. Fox News Digital has previously reported on a broader mobilization involving roughly 600 organizations nationwide connected to May Day protest activity. An investigation found these groups hold a combined $2 billion in revenue and organized thousands of protests as part of a coordinated left-wing alliance. The Minneapolis march came months after large-scale anti-ICE protests in the same city.
Communist Party USA members were seen handing out newspapers and leaflets at the rally. Red flags were waved openly. Members of the Democratic Socialists of America held signs. The Party for Socialism and Liberation was also present. Marshals directed the march and blocked side streets. The protest concluded without major disruption, and Fox News Digital noted little to no visible police presence along much of the route.
The broader pattern of radical elements embedding themselves in Democratic-adjacent politics is not limited to street protests. In Michigan, a Senate hopeful faces mounting scrutiny over ties to socialist activists and Maduro allies. These are not isolated cases. They are data points in a trend that mainstream Democratic leaders have been reluctant to confront.
Not everyone along the march route was sympathetic. Sedonia Meyers, watching from the sidewalk, described herself as "a very centrist individual." Her view of immigration was straightforward and grounded in the rule of law.
"If you want to be a citizen... you should work hard... and do the proper steps."
Meyers said the country must "vet the people that come into this country." She did not need a manifesto or a red flag. She had common sense, the thing in shortest supply at the rally itself.
The growing boldness of radical elements within the broader left has accelerated pressure on Democratic leadership to either confront or accommodate the movement. So far, accommodation appears to be winning.
The Minneapolis May Day rally was not a secret meeting. It was a public march, on public streets, with public officials reading resolutions on a stage shared with people who openly advocate for communist revolution and the seizure of private property. The participants said what they meant. They praised China. They praised the Soviet Union. They called for abolishing ICE, expropriating wealth, and dismantling capitalism.
And Minneapolis City Council members stood right there with them.
When elected officials choose to share a platform with people who want to tear down the system those officials swore to uphold, voters don't need a political science degree to understand what's happening. They just need to pay attention.
