On July 27th, during his speech at a General Motors facility in Milford, Michigan, a protester in the crowd raised their voice above the crowd and accused President Trump of being a “pedophile protector”. In response and without hesitation, as if on script, President Trump quickly fired back by calling the protestor a…wait for it…“communist”.
When I saw the clip that captured this public exchange of accusations on Substack, it occurred to me that President Trump had ramped up his use of the “C” word in recent weeks. And in knowing that I have certain political biases, I asked Gemini for guidance to either confirm or refute my suspicion with the following inquiry:
Has President Trump increased using the label of communist for his political opponents more in recent weeks than during his entire political career ?
From Gemini:
Yes, President Trump has significantly escalated his use of the label, as his campaign aides tested a strategy in which he invoked communism 81 times during just a two-week stretch.
The Escalation
Historical Context
While this surge marks an intense clustering of the word, using “communist” or “socialist” to describe Democratic opponents is not new for him. Trump used similar terminology to frame his 2024 general election campaign against then-Vice President Kamala Harris, whom he frequently branded as “Comrade Kamala”. Trump himself acknowledged the tactic, telling reporters that defeating his opponents merely requires defining them as “somebody who is going to destroy our country”.
Why does this matter ?
Recent work from the typically prescient political analyst, Nate Silver, provides the answer to the veracity of Trump’s escalating attacks in the attached article from The Hill whose title says it all “Nate Silver: Americans may be ‘moving on’ from Trump”.
As it turns out, due to plummeting approval ratings in conjunction with and in addition to:
- Building congressional opposition to illegal war with Iran,
- A complicated peace deal with Iran that looks like an American surrender,
- Domestic architectural injunctions relating to Trump’s proposed Grand Ballroom, Triumphal Arch, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, and more…,
- A canceled $1.8 billion slush fund whose proceeds were intended to be forwarded to January 6th protestors…,
- Growing AI concern and regulation woes,
…there does appear to be a building desperation in President Trump when evaluating his actions in recent weeks.
Channel 4 News: Five reasons why Trump is losing
There is much to unpack here and fortunately today’s note has no intent going down any such “rabbit holes”. Instead, today’s note is focused specifically on what is and will increasingly be in the months to come a labeling of democratic political opponents who appear on track to overtake at least the House this fall as “communists”.
There is a certain evil genius in this pivot that looks to be on the surface as a typical political barb, the type of which that often come out during the weeks and months leading up to important elections.
It’s also a simple accusation that less than informed voters, such as the type of voter that exists in Trump’s most ardent base, can easily sink their teeth into. It also brings up a bygone “Cold War” era whose punchline has been cleverly twisted into replacing the former Soviet Union as the “bad guys” and replacing them with any Democrat as the ultimate evil and the “enemy within”. Fear is a powerful motivator and what better way to enliven a base that is losing their interest while also beginning to fume over rising gas and food prices than to…try to scare the living “&^%$” out of them as a stratagem for staunching Trump’s recently plummeting popularity numbers.
An important time to remember Trump’s mentor, Roy Cohn
The attached article from Politico “The Final Lesson Donald Trump Never Learned From Roy Cohn” does a stellar job in not only informing the reader who Roy Cohn was but also the special relationship he enjoyed with Donald Trump.
Politico: The Final Lesson Donald Trump Never Learned From Roy Cohn
In terms of capturing the essence of who Cohn was…from the Atlantic:
“What Cohn could, and did, get away with was the very engine of his existence. The infamous chief counsel for the red-baiting (see below), Joseph McCarthy-chaired Senate subcommittee in the 1950s, Cohn was indicted four times from the mid-’60s to the early ’70s—for stock-swindling and obstructing justice and perjury and bribery and conspiracy and extortion and blackmail and filing false reports. And three times he was acquitted—the fourth ended in a mistrial—giving him a kind of sneering, sinister sheen of invulnerability. Cohn…took his sanction-skirting capers and twisted them into a sort of suit of armor…”.
Sound familiar?
And in terms of connecting Cohn to Trump while also illuminating his and Donald Trump’s political superpower…from the Atlantic:
“He (Cohn) made his legal and political career,” in the estimation of the British historian Eric Hobsbawm, “in a milieu where money and power override rules and law—indeed where the ability to get, and get away with, what lesser citizens cannot, is what proves membership of an elite (and ultimate political power).”
And away from Cohn, whom Trump dumped like a “hot potato” once Cohn became terminally ill with AIDS, it is Cohn’s work with Senator Charles McCarthy during the senator’s communist witch hunts in the 1950’s that warrants attention right now.
The McCarthy (led by Roy Cohn) “Communist” witch trials of the 1950’s
In the final months that marked the end of WWII, the Soviet Army poured through Eastern Europe and powerfully expanded its geographic reach by annexing and then installing pro-Soviet communist regimes in countries such as Poland, East Germany, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. Millions of Russians had died in defeating the German army that some historians believed was the greatest military force ever assembled and invaded Russia in 1941. The Soviet Union wanted something back…
Away from Europe, Japan was hanging on and had no intention of surrendering to a steadily encroaching US military that had turned the tide of the War in the Pacific. Importantly, as the US was preparing for a final invasion of Japan, the Russian Army was blazing through Manchuria also on its way to Japan. In seeing the horror of what Churchill would describe the rapid Soviet expansion a year later as an “Iron Curtain” that had descended across Europe, the US had no intention of letting a similar scenario play out in Southeast Asia.
The US needed an immediate end to its war with Japan and dropped two atomic bombs on Japan without consulting the Russians to achieve that end. A nuclear arms race and Cold War had begun. And it was in understanding the horrific power of atomic and subsequent hydrogen bombs while also understanding that Russia posed not only a grave military but ideological existential threat (as capitalism could not coexist with communism…); America quickly developed an anti-Communist hysteria which was a perfect moment for a young Roy Cohn to arrive on the US political scene in the 1950’s.
It was then as a young federal prosecutor; Roy Cohn, built his reputation by helping to secure the espionage convictions and death sentences of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1951. This aggressive anti-communist work caught the attention of Senator Joseph McCarthy, who hired Cohn as his chief counsel in 1953 to spearhead what became the “Red Scare” hearings.
What became quickly evident during this time was that Cohn would stop at nothing to achieve the means he wanted to achieve as decades after the Rosenberg’s death it became clear that Cohn had coerced testimony, was ardent in pushing for a death sentence and even tampered with the judge overseeing the case. The bottom line, upon historic review, is that the Rosenberg’s, the parents of two young American children, should have never been executed. They died anyway because Roy Cohn knew what buttons to push amid an environment of hysteria.
Before leaving Cohn’s work in the 1950’s, his legacy included ruining the careers and reputations of hundreds of loyal government officials, artists and citizens by accusing them of being communists with little to no evidence. As a closeted gay man himself, Cohn also led government campaigns to hunt down and fire gay men and women working in federal agencies.
Ultimately, Roy Cohn was a monster who decades later became a mentor to none other than Donald Trump at the behest of Trump’s father, Fred Trump.
This is the deep and troubling history of what it means when President Trump starts labeling people as “communists”. The sleight is not to be taken lightly as Trump views those not aligned to his politics and criminality as an enemy to be destroyed. As mentioned, Roy Cohn, Trump’s mentor, thought nothing of eviscerating hundreds of peoples’ lives as alleged communists back in the 1950’s with no evidence. Through tampering, Cohn was able to get the Rosenbergs executed by the US government without breaking a sweat. Let’s also not forget that President Trump recently, with intent, divulged the address of Khadeeja Safdar a Wall Street Journal reporter in public court filings for a $20 billion defamation lawsuit against the Journal. Ms. Safdar and her family had to relocate for safety reasons.
Right now, with $45 billion in congressional backing, ICE is rapidly building detention centers designed to hold 100,000 to 125,000 people which far eclipses the stated original mass deportation mission of ICE. It’s not a far reach, and especially given recent incendiary rhetoric of White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Stephen Miller, (labeling Democrats as “freaks, weirdos and crazies” as he is spurred on by Fox News) and Secretary of State Marco Rubio (labeling Democrats as “extremists and a threat to Democracy”) that the extra capacity of these detention centers could be deployed for other types of service.
As for understanding where the next frontier lies for where political action can go in the wake of such vitriolic political discourse, the writer encourages readers to have a look at Hans Fallada’s classic 20th century masterpiece, “Every Man Dies Alone” as a guide to how far human decency can quickly evaporate during times of mass hysteria. Fallada’s novel, based on a true story of an ordinary German couple who resisted the Nazi regime through small acts of defiance, chronicles with devastating precision how authoritarian rhetoric can transform neighbors into informants and dissent into a capital offense.
Bottom Line
The inspiration for bringing this week’s note in for a landing comes from the understanding of the rationale for why President Trump will be attacking Democrats as communists in the months leading up to November’s election. Voters are increasingly resonating toward candidates with progressive platforms that plan to better serve the people and intend to tax America’s most wealthy to help fund their objectives.
In contrast, the only tangible coherent platform takeaway from the second Trump administration is its ruthless and secret implementation of Project 25 under the direction of Office of Management and Budget Director, Russel Voight.
For those less familiar, Gemini provided the following real time take on Project 25 and how much of it has been implemented by the second Trump administration:
“Project 2025 is a 920-page conservative blueprint drafted by The Heritage Foundation alongside former Trump administration officials. It outlines a sweeping agenda to radically reshape the federal government by centralizing presidential power, dismantling civil service protections, expanding mass deportations, heavily restricting reproductive rights, and cutting environmental and LGBTQ+ protections.
Tracking by policy analysts and labor advocates estimates that the Trump administration has already initiated or completed roughly 50% to 53% of Project 2025’s domestic policy agenda…”
Given the clash and chasm that exist between progressive politicians such as Mamdani and the ultra-conservative secret underpinnings of Project 25, it is reasonable to expect considerable civic volatility in the months ahead as well as the vilification of progressive candidates as communists.
It is against this backdrop that the writer is compelled to clarify if indeed a progressive politician like Mamdani in New York is a communist which prompted my following inquiry to Gemini: Please describe the difference between the policies of NY Mayor Mamdani versus the tenets of communism. Are they closely aligned ?
Gemini Response: “New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani identifies as a democratic socialist, not a communist. While both ideologies seek to address income inequality, they are fundamentally distinct in their core principles and level of state control.
The differences between Mayor Mamdani’s policies and the tenets of communism are as follows:
Are they closely aligned? Political scientists and fact-checkers generally agree they are not closely aligned. Mamdani’s policies align more closely with the social democratic models seen in Western European and Nordic countries, which combine capitalist economies with robust welfare programs. Critics, however, often conflate democratic socialism with communism to criticize expanding government intervention…”
It is worth noting that the US provides approximately $4 billion in annual support for Israel which provides fee universal healthcare and education for its citizens…
This November, this writer implores everyone to not only vote but to make an informed vote based on historical facts and away from the political labeling frenzy of America’s deeply divided political moment.
Have a great week !