Democratic Senator Blumenthal gives speech at Communist Party awards ceremony

Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) attended an awards ceremony by a Communist Party affiliate on Saturday, where he gave a speech and presented three winners with certificates of special recognition from the United States Senate. 

Blumenthal was a surprise guest at the Connecticut People’s World Committee annual Amistad Awards, which also marked the 102nd anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party USA. The committee is an affiliate of the party and the Marxist People’s World news site.

“I am really excited and honored to be with you today and share in this remarkable occasion,” Blumenthal said, according to the Yankee Institute, a free-market think tank in Connecticut. He also said that one doesn’t have to agree with everything the party or unions stand for to acknowledge “the great tradition of activism” the three winners represented.

“Communism is an ideology of envy, hatred and violence that has led to the deaths of tens of millions of people across the world,” said Yankee Institute President Carol Platt Liebau via email. “Connecticut is home to thousands of families from Poland, China, and other countries who can explain first-hand why they chose to escape it.”

The event was also used to recruit for the Communist Party, with the emcee urging attendees to “join the Communist Party in this epic time as we make good trouble to uproot systemic racism, retool the war economy, tax the rich, address climate change, secure voting rights and create a new socialist system that puts people, peace and planet before profits.”

Blumenthal also used his appearance to pitch Democrats' legislatives priorities in Congress, like the Build Back Better Plan, a national $15 minimum wage, and ending the filibuster.

“There’s a lot to be working for in economic justice, in racial equity, in establishing a $15 minimum wage, and holding corporations accountable for the basic treatment of the American people,” Blumenthal told the audience. “We need to look at our entire tax system, beginning with Build Back Better.”

Some have pointed out that Blumenthal, one of the wealthiest members of the Senate, was an odd fit for the labor-focused Communist Party event. He is worth an estimated $100 million, largely owing to his wife, a member of a New York real estate dynasty.