The Year of the Democratic Socialists took another twist Tuesday when the House went on the offensive to paint Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’s (D-N.Y.) party as a dangerous force of anti-Americanism. While the New Yorker has desperately tried to put some distance between Democrats and the DSA (somewhat unsuccessfully, others would add), the party’s drift toward mind-boggling radicalism is putting the entire country on edge.

The four-page resolution at the center of the House’s return to Washington this week “condemns and denounces socialism in all its forms, including the Democratic Socialists of America and opposes the implementation of socialist policies in the United States.” The brainchild of Rep. Jeff Crank (R-Colo.) spells out the wild ideas of the DSA, including abolishing prisons, ICE, the U.S. Senate, the Supreme Court, the Electoral College, and the presidency as we know it. Yet, despite those blaring red sirens, Jeffries’s rank-and-file are trying to dismiss the GOP’s concerns as “silly season.”

“Let’s scare people with yet another boogeyman and not do anything about it. Not really solve problems,” Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.) argued. But others, like Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-N.Y.), were quick to push back, reminding her that this is no hypothetical. “I’ve seen firsthand the alarming rise of socialism,” he said. “… Families in western New York have watched one-party rule in Albany pile on more taxes, more mandates, more government control, while hardworking taxpayers are left to foot the bill,” Langworthy warned. “And now downstate, we’ve watched the socialist left move more from the activist fringe into positions of real, serious political power. And anyone [who] thinks that these ideas are going to stay confined in New York City is sadly mistaken.”

While Jeffries’s lieutenants speak out of both sides of their mouths about the creeping communist agenda — “Democratic Socialists aren’t part of the Democratic Party,” but “we’re a broad caucus” — conservatives are making it clear that the party has already been ideologically captured.

“[S]cores of these candidates coming up through the system at the state level and congressional level,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) emphasized on Saturday’s “This Week on Capitol Hill” with Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. “Almost 40 of them now have prevailed and gone through these primary processes, because … the energy, the excitement, the grassroots, the money is on the side of the insurgent Left, sadly, in the Democratic Party. They’re taking the party over. And this is not a game,” he said somberly. “It’s not a flash in the pan. This isn’t a New York City thing. It’s happened in Oklahoma. It happened in Florida. It’s happening in red states, and it’s something that we must take into account.”

And this extreme makeover of Democrats is happening at warp speed, Johnson underscored. “… [A] few years ago, Republicans and Democrats in Congress [were] arguing over marginal tax rates and shades of regulation. We are now quite literally locked into a contest to determine whether we’re going to keep our republic — to keep the country as it is, or to break this thing down to the foundation and go [down] an entirely different road and set of principles towards communism. That’s the balance.”

The speaker, who’s been crisscrossing the country with this urgent message, pointed to a new website that Republicans put together called ContrastForAmerica.com that lays out the grim history of communism and socialism. “It always — every single time — has led to human suffering, misery, famine, even to death and the murder of tens of millions of innocent people in the 20th century alone. We can’t do it. It’s anti-American, and everybody needs to wake up right now. That is what is on the ballot almost 65 days from today.”

Johnson pointed to some of the shocking platforms embraced by candidates vying for some of the highest offices in Congress. There’s Abdul El-Sayed, running for Michigan’s Senate seat, who won’t disavow streamer Hasan Piker for blaming America for 9/11 or for calling Jews “bloodthirsty pig dogs.” The radical Muslim, whose own anti-Semitism has earned him the scorn of even far-Left Democrats like Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), is frantically trying to make inroads to the state’s Jewish population despite more baggage than a Boeing 737.

Yet if he wins, El-Sayed will be one of the most powerful voices in Washington. These are people, the speaker cautioned, “who are so determined to rip the Constitution in half.” And when some of these candidates get elected, “and they will in some of these blue districts,” he concedes, “you’re going to have a number of effectively communists elected to Congress under the Constitution.” So what happens? “Will they disavow what they say if they raise their hand and they take an oath to uphold the Constitution? Someone would have to prove that they’re lying. It’s a very subjective determination. I mean, it’s a fascinating, untested, unprecedented question. Those are the times in which we live.”

At the end of the day, “They’re delusional,” the speaker shook his head. “They do not understand history. They do not understand how dangerous this is. And the idea that anyone who is currently sitting in Congress or the Senate, like [Senator] Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) or [Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.] or any of them … would align themselves with this madness is crazy. … And I’m sad to tell you,” the Louisianan lamented, “I say this with great sadness, I think it’s too late for the Democrat[ic] Party. I do not think they can push back.”

Conservatives will continue to, despite allegations from the Left that anti-socialism resolutions like the one the House is pursuing this week are unnecessary. Yes, FRC’s Quena González acknowledges, some of this is political strategy. But that’s not to say the threat isn’t real.

“Republicans voting for a resolution condemning socialism less than two months before the midterms is a classic election-year maneuver to find the lowest of low-hanging fruit. It’s a clever ploy,” he notes, “because Democrats in Congress are watching members of the Democratic Socialists of America win primaries and can’t afford to condemn them without risking their chance of retaking the House majority.”

Obviously, González acknowledges, “It would be easy for Christians to throw up their hands, discouraged by the electioneering and paralysis in D.C. But thinking biblically means that we do not have the luxury of giving in to cynicism and despair. We are called to be salt and light, to act for the good of our neighbors, and to pray for our rulers. And in America,” he urged, “praying for our rulers included praying for wisdom for our fellow citizens. Americans choose our leaders, but less than half of eligible voters vote in midterm elections. Bible-believing Christians have an out-sized impact when they vote wisely.”

Speaker Johnson is also banking on reason and common sense to prevail. “You can trust the American people when they are given the facts. And [if] they’re informed, they will do the right thing. We’re still a center-right country,” he insists. “We’re still one nation under God — no matter [what] these crazy, radical, leftist, anti-God, anti-Semitic, pro-terrorism [people] say. This is still America. And I believe God’s not done with America yet. And people are going to rise up, do the right thing, elect the right people who love their country, and want to preserve it and continue to make it better. That is the challenge. That is the choice. That’s the election before us.”