The closest thing to a communist in the US is someone who wants the government to own the means of production by extorting shares of companies from their owner. And that of course is DJT. Ironical, isn’t it. But the deplorables eat it up.
Not when you consider that he idolizes Vladimir Putin.
Is this recently on the uptick or somethiing? I remember Democrats being called commies from when I was first aware of politics, some time in the 80s. Even remember “commie pinko” which I don’t hear so much anymore.
I was just thinking along the same lines. If you want universal health care, or a higher minimum wage, or for ICE to stop shooting people, you’ll get the snarl word of “communist” tossed in your direction.
But, if you’re the federal government and you’re purchasing ownership stakes in dozens of companies that doesn’t qualify as “communism?”
Hypocrisy, thy name is Trump.
But the investments also include chipmakers and possibly a nuclear reactor company. In the case of U.S. Steel, the administration has taken a governance stake rather than a direct economic interest.
The number of investments is extraordinary outside of wartime or an economic crisis, said Scott Lincicome, a trade lawyer and a researcher at the libertarian Cato Institute.
(I’ve never tried a link to CNBC before. I don’t think this is paywalled. Apologies if I mistaken, but I was able to read it.)
Yeah, self styled democratic socialists have been winning. First if was Mamdani in NYC, and now it’s a congressional office in Colorado.
Democratic socialism is gaining in popularity. So the response is to call it “communism” and try to squash it before people actually see what it can accomplish
Then there was the McCarthy era, and then again in the early 60s when the sainted Ronald Reagan (blessed be his name) declared that enacting Medicare would put America in the grip of impending communism, and would represent the end of freedom and the end of America as we know it. When Obama’s ACA was being debated, the “public option” raised similar fears all over again.
It’s an old, old tactic but somehow it always works after memories of all the past lies have faded and the fear-mongering can begin anew.
It’s the same old snarl word being revived. “Woke” has worn out its welcome so they’re back to the reliable one where “Communist” equals “Something I don’t like.”
If the Russian/Trump link in 2016 ever gets proved they’ll simply claim, “But Russians aren’t Communist any more!”
Just to amplify …
“A demagogue or rabble-rouser, is a political leader in a democracy who gains popularity by arousing the common people against elites, especially through oratory that whips up the passions of crowds, appealing to emotion by scapegoating out-groups, exaggerating dangers to stoke fears, lying for emotional effect, or other rhetoric that tends to drown out reasoned deliberation and encourage fanatical popularity.”
"Demagogues overturn established norms of political conduct, or promise or threaten to do so. Historian Reinhard Luthin defined demagogue as “a politician skilled in oratory, flattery and invective; evasive in discussing vital issues; promising everything to everybody; appealing to the passions rather than the reason of the public; and arousing racial, religious, and class prejudices—a man whose lust for power without recourse to principle leads him to seek to become a master of the masses. He has for centuries practiced his profession of ‘man of the people’. He is a product of a political tradition nearly as old as western civilization itself.” [Wikipedia]
I think that’s part of it. A lot of the Right looks at everything they don’t like (which is most things) as one, vast mass of “Them” that are all on the same side and all are knowingly opposed to all that is good and just (aka, the fascists). They hate and fear the Communist Muslim Satanist Atheist Antifa Transgender Gay Feminist Pedophile Anarchist Totalitarian horde.
These days I see “liberal” being used more and more as a slur for the Democrats from leftists in addition to right wingers. When this happens, my default is to believe them when they say they dislike liberalism and assume that they are therefore illiberal.
They equate “liberal” with “fascist”, actually; they consider liberals “illiberal”. As far as they are concerned a “liberal ghoul” is just a fascist who hasn’t taken the mask off yet.
Good points in this paragraph.
I’ve been looking in on a predominantly right-wing message board for ten or so years now, and “Communist” is not a new insult, or a resurrected one. They’ve been using it for years.
Basically, anything or anyone that might possibly change their American way of life is branded as Communist or Socialist or Marxist, or a combination of all three. Some of them do make distinctions (the Scandinavian countries are socialist, while the USSR, China under Mao and Cuba under Castro are/were communist), but not all do, and a phrase like “That Marxist Socialist Communist Obama” is not uncommon.
But whether it’s socialism or communism, they don’t like it because it changes their American way of life. Socialism has you paying taxes out the wazoo for services you may not necessarily want, but have forced upon you (this is their argument against single-payer health insurance, free post-secondary education, etc.). Communism is all that, but goes farther into forced re-education camps, political crimes, gulags, and so on.
A lot of what Democrats are proposing will change their way of life. “Government-run health insurance will cost me plenty and provide me with sub-par care. Socialism!” “School loans forgiven? Not only are colleges and universities Marxist indoctrination centers, but the Commie kids they turn out don’t have to pay for school!”
There is a lot more, but this one has kind of gotten away from me. At any rate “Communism” as an insult towards the Left has been around for ages.
Band name!
I think @DavidNRockies gave the correct answer in the very first response. Mamdani threw an existential scare into the right. The few socialists in Congress, even AOC, were easily dismissible as dark-skinned Muslim kooks. They had no real power, even within their own party.
Then Mamdani appeared out of seeming nowhere. He bundled all their hate terms into a single person. And he won. He crushed a former governor of New York, who all the power players and billionaires were backing. He promised all the daily living items that the people wanted and the right has been fighting to make them forget under a blanket of “hate others.” He was a proud Democratic Socialist of America and nobody seemed to care, not even the centrist democrats who read a DSA website and thought they were kooks. (The DSA has apparently rewritten their sites to conform more to Mamdani and less to their ideal vision of a changed society.) The right needed to up the hate level to 11. So he became a communist.
The New York Post, Rupert Murdoch’s right-wing hate tabloid rag, first started with front pages calling Mamdani a socialist after the primary, and getting more of a “who cares?” than a “OMG no!” Trump was ahead of them, already calling Mamdani a communist a full year ago. The real onslaught appeared after he was elected; the commie was coming for your rights, your money, your children, and will drive all the billionaires out of NYC. His pledge to set up city-funded grocery stores generated shouts of Commie!, although somehow Trump’s Freedom Gas stations haven’t. A commie who’s doing good stuff? That could take down our whole society.
The right has nothing whatsoever to offer except hate. Their hate words often don’t make sense to anybody outside MAGA-types but what else can they do? Besides, Trump likes to call him a commie and whatever Trump does so shall we all. Communist it is.
It’s been fascinating to watch this develop over the last year as the right grows increasing hysterical about their losing hand for the upcoming midterms. Nothing they’ve done has changed minds. MAGA is undyingly loyal but every other group is fleeing the right. Old hates are the best hates. Commies have been boogeymen in America since the 1800s. Time to resurrect their rotting corpses and prop them up for one more election before the deluge.
A small (tiny) selection of headlines from the New York Post.
And one commentary on the Post.
I want the shirt.
Today I heard on the radio that the USDOT was making changes to highway design. One of these, announced by Secretary Sean Duffy, was the elimination of “DEI bike lanes”. I was unaware that White people don’t ride bikes.
The snarl words’ definitions keep expanding until they all mean the same thing: “Something I don’t like”.