Trump's latest Red Scare recycles one of America's oldest political tricks: invent an internal enemy to distract voters from the policies reshaping the country…
Ok, we get it, the Rump is an insane fascist dictator wannabe. He is third only to Putin and the other insane guy in north Korea Kim Jong Um. Think about that. And, he is in competition for #1 with those 2 arsholes. Welcome to tRumpairica.
The "Red Scare" generation has and is dying out. It is not an effective propaganda tool unless we empower it, and we empower it, by giving it credence,and we give it credence by talking about it.
If we ignore it , it will go away, but I can't help thinking of a poster I call Boris, who has tried to use the words Red Scare, to defend and change the subject away from a conscienceless, criminal authoritarian that runs Russia. A real master of genocide, Vladimir Putin,.
And that is what Trump, agent Krasnov, is doing resurrecting the Red Scare, to defend his friend Vlad, and attack his enemies.
It’d be helpful if our free speech-loving corporate media could find a way to balance its penchant for repeating with some occasional serious reporting. That might include, for instance, pointing out that POSOTUS’S most admired world leaders are, in fact, “commies”. That won’t happen, of course, and they will continue to be instruments of our decline. Democratic leadership might well take note that action speaks louder than words. Their’s have been virtually inaudible and predictably ineffectual, and predictably ignored by the corporate media.
Tom,super idea,but is not going to happen.Our media has capitulated,they are watching the " Nazi" takeover and have lost all credibility.Did they even report on Trump threats against FIFA which led to syncophants @ FIFA reinstating an American player who had been red carded and was not supposed to play in the match against Belgium. Belgium won and said to Trump" Reverse this" . We should be calling FIFA and Gianni Infantino to let them know they have lost all credibility.
These bad things that are supposed to happen under the communists are already surely happening, have been for the last 45 years, under mostly Republican administrations, and are much worse already under Trump, for the last 18 months; so that prediction is valid, but like most things under Trump, reality is reversed. Of course, Trump is going to blame every problem of his own making on the Dem Socialists, whom he calls Communists, but they ain't.
In a sick way it is interesting to hear his rants about "the Commies", while encouraging the use of coal and basically denying the last half century of social and scientific progress. And also hearing his thinking that America can easily beat everybody else in the world is at best quaint. It's almost like his brain is stuck in the 1950s. Back then dinosaurs (in the form of white Christian men) ruled and for them life was simple.
But I do laugh. In that period the loony John Birch Society saw Communist influence everywhere. Well, Putin's past that ideology (he's a Russian ultranationalist), but in one sense the Birchers were finally right. By golly, there is an agent of Moscow in the White House!
Of course, Democrats are not communists. However, why aren't Democrats amplifying that MAGAs are fascist? That IS real. I doubt that the vast majority of American voters are eager to embrace a return to NAZIism. I cannot recall hearing a single Democrat reject being called a communist. Dems do not even bother to make MAGAs defend their use of the term. Do it enough and the MSM will get into the act.
All of Thom's points supporting Democratic social progressivism are on target and plentiful as voters get broker and brokerer. The problem is that the Democratic Party does a lousy job of consistently explaining their goals & platforms, and then linking them to restoring our failing Democracy while improving our quality of life. DNC needs more Hoggs and fewer Lamborghini drivers. David drives straight; so do AOC, Bernie, Liz Warren, etc.
Trump may be Cohnizing, but he is also aware that presidents during wars often get elected. Ergo, while we pay daily for the Iran circus, Trump is hoping it will build support for his macho patriotic movement - bone spurs and all.
Reprinted below is my Substack post of July 5, 2026 which may be useful in augmenting Thom's current post by presenting more historical information about the communist scare tactic. I think it is important to get full and acurate information to people so they can defend themselves against the deluge of false information that the current administration is going to try to use to stay in power. The truth shall set us free. I paste below.
Trump accuses ‘godless communists’ of being the greatest threat to the US since WWII
So, Trump is on his communist rampage again. According to him, they are coming out of the woodwork like cockroaches.
I want to clear up a couple misconceptions which decades of Right Wing suppression and misrepresentation of information have spawned. This may shock you, but let’s get one thing straight. There is no such thing as Communism. It was the brain child of Karl Marx who made it up as his predicted outcome of the people’s proletariat revolution that was supposed to replace capitalism. It was supposed to be a perfect utopia, free of racism, sexism and class distinctions, where resources were shared “from each according to their ability, and to each according to their need." For the most part, it would contain no government at all. Marx said that what we currently think of as the "state" was just a means of enforcing bourgeois control and would no longer be necessary.
However, none of this ever happened. And it never will. It is an idealized fiction, a utopia, and utopias, like unicorns, don't happen.
What did happen is that Lenin co-opted Marx’s ideas by replacing the move to this idealized communism with Lenin’s “dictatorship of the proletariat,” which was actually the dictatorship of the Russian Communist Party, or in other words, a plain, old dictatorship. So, instead of progressing to this fictional, idealized, communist state, things got waylaid in dictatorial socialism
So, there is not now, nor has there ever been, a communist country on the face of this planet. What are often described as communist countries are actually, and by their own admission, socialist countries—by which they mean that the government has taken ownership and control of the economy. China calls itself socialist. Even before the breakup of the Soviet Union, it was officially The Union of Soviet SOCIALIST Republics. Their excuse is that the people are not ready for the pure state of communism, so the government must run things until the people are ready—which, of course, never happens.
So, why do people run and scurry when demagogues start yelling that “the communist rabble is at the gate”? The communist threat was made up after WWII to scare the American people into giving up aspirations to put safeguards in our economy so it wouldn’t cause the kind of suffering we saw during the Great Depression. The threat was that these Commies were out to take government control of everyone’s wealth and business.
Now, make no mistake. During the 1930s, the Communist Party of America had a strong presence in the US. People were desparate for answers, and the theories of Karl Marx provided a theoretical justification that helped people push for such programs as Social Security, Unemployment Compensation, employment Works Programs, and more. And these programs were the basis of the strong, healthy middle class we saw in the 50s and 60s. And there were some at the time who saw nationalization of American business and industry as a logical solution to the suffering that unbridled capitalism had created. But there was never any fear that such radical restructuring of the US economy was within reach. The oligarchs yelled that Rosevelt was a socialist. But by instituting some socialist programs to eleviate suffering, Rosevelt actually saved capitalism by limiting some of the destructive tendencies inherent in it.
The Communist Party USA still exists today as, in my opinion, an insipid, anachronism, with few members and no real impact. It is not now and never was against the law to belong to it. Our Constitution makes it difficult to outlaw thoughts, and it had broken no laws.
Rather, the “Red Scare” was the ruling class’s tactic to put a stop to the progressive forces that had won benefits for working people during the 30s. So, Joseph McCarthy and buddies set up Congressional subcommittees that subpoenaed suspected communists, branded them guilty if they didn’t turn over the names of their subversive friends, blacklisted them so they could not work to feed their families, and, without any recourse to the due process guaranteed in the Constitution, basically ruined people’s lives. It was a scourge that imprinted fear like the Black Plague and instilled a terror that is invoked to this day when some sociopathic, political misanthrope senses they are losing control and wants to strike a fear that gets people back in line. It’s just that simple.
The economic and political crises we are now facing is, I feel, causing people to look for new ideas, and the recent successes of democratic socialists must reflect that. We really need to be clear here. There is absolutely no similarity or relationship between the socialism enforced by dictatorship in coutries like China, Cuba, and North Korea and the democratic socialism in play today in the US. Democratic socialists only believe in achieving political goals through the democratic process—not through an authoritarian takeover like happened in Russia. Nor are they espousing a total replacement of capitalism. They are proposing systems that would maintain a balance so the working class would get a fair shot.
Democratic socialist political parties are prevalent around the world and generally place an emphasis on the importance of government ownership and operation of business such as we see in the postal services, fire department, police, libraries, schools, and sidewalks. However, from what I gleen, this new, democratic socialism developing in the US has broadened the meaning to include support for anything that benefits the working class, and this could include establishing government owned and operated businesses (like setting up grocery stores to bring prices down by providing competition to privately-owned ones) , but also just instituting government policies that benefit working people (like placing rent controls in certain areas.).
It seems confusing to have disperate definitions of democratic socialism, but if this new kind delivers rent freezes, affordable child care, competition in grocery stores, and free busses, who am I to quibble over what is basically a difference in emphasis? What is important is to educate and reassure people that the democratic socialism movement is a political vehicle for uniting people to fight for relief from their present suffering. It bases its power on democracy, and it has nothing to do with communism which doesn’t actually exist anyway, has never existed, and won’t ever exist—except maybe as the economic system on Star Trek.
Oh and, by the way, antifa doesn’t exist either. It is another boogie man made up by cynical politicians to scare people into accepting the status quo. Beware of political forces which make up threats and then elicit your support by promising to protect you from them.
Thanks for reading Shea’s Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Well, no one has sent me a card to carry for that. Never got one for Antifa either. I would venture to say Jesus might have seen the merit in some form of communism. He owned nothing and no one, unlike TRump.
We need to beat them over the head with "affordability" and the truth. Let's talk about who has created all the jobs.
I like to point out that other nations are not richer or smarter than we are, but they have managed to figure out health care, education, and a decent retirement. Our "dark age" of TRump and his Syndicate will end. The corruption is going to get them domestically. The murders in the waters off South America and in Gaza are going to get them internationally. See you in the streets.
After reading the first three paragraphs I am again beyond astounded that there is no PUSH BACK or mule kicking about this vicious language usage towards fellow Americans. This is where our Democratic party has abandoned us. No push back on this kind of malignancy of thinking and speaking that some MAGAt believers will believe and possibly act on. Where are our defenders? And then they ask for donations?
It's so absurdly difficult to cancel my subscription (financial need) and get a refund with the Hartmann report. WTF. I'm just going to cancel and say a few words that I cannot repeat here. Shame on you.
Excellent presentation, Thom. One tiny bone to pick: "...the main tenant of communism is that the government owns the businesses...." I'm pretty sure you meant to say 'tenet,' not 'tenant.'
Comparing trump to McCarthy suggests this quote from Marx's (Karl, not Groucho) XVIII Brumaire: "Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce."
WE ARE ENDURING A VERY SAD AND DIFFICULT TIME IN AMERICA NOW. UNLESS ALMIGHTY GOD CHOOSES TO TAKE TRUMP AWAU FROM US, AS I HOPE, WE HAVE 30 MORE MONTHS OF THIS DERANGED NARCISSIT DOING HIS BEST TO WRECK AMERICAN DEMOCRACY..
WE CAN ALWAYS HOPE. PERHAPS "VENOUS INSUFFICIENCY, WITH THE HELP OF A FEW DOZRN BIG MACS, DOUBLE CHEESE, WILL RESOLVE OUR NATIONAL DILEMNA.
Ok, we get it, the Rump is an insane fascist dictator wannabe. He is third only to Putin and the other insane guy in north Korea Kim Jong Um. Think about that. And, he is in competition for #1 with those 2 arsholes. Welcome to tRumpairica.
The "Red Scare" generation has and is dying out. It is not an effective propaganda tool unless we empower it, and we empower it, by giving it credence,and we give it credence by talking about it.
If we ignore it , it will go away, but I can't help thinking of a poster I call Boris, who has tried to use the words Red Scare, to defend and change the subject away from a conscienceless, criminal authoritarian that runs Russia. A real master of genocide, Vladimir Putin,.
And that is what Trump, agent Krasnov, is doing resurrecting the Red Scare, to defend his friend Vlad, and attack his enemies.
It’d be helpful if our free speech-loving corporate media could find a way to balance its penchant for repeating with some occasional serious reporting. That might include, for instance, pointing out that POSOTUS’S most admired world leaders are, in fact, “commies”. That won’t happen, of course, and they will continue to be instruments of our decline. Democratic leadership might well take note that action speaks louder than words. Their’s have been virtually inaudible and predictably ineffectual, and predictably ignored by the corporate media.
Tom,super idea,but is not going to happen.Our media has capitulated,they are watching the " Nazi" takeover and have lost all credibility.Did they even report on Trump threats against FIFA which led to syncophants @ FIFA reinstating an American player who had been red carded and was not supposed to play in the match against Belgium. Belgium won and said to Trump" Reverse this" . We should be calling FIFA and Gianni Infantino to let them know they have lost all credibility.
Trump’s predictions of life under Communism are actually what he, the theocrats and the oligarchs will do to us if we don’t vote them out.
These bad things that are supposed to happen under the communists are already surely happening, have been for the last 45 years, under mostly Republican administrations, and are much worse already under Trump, for the last 18 months; so that prediction is valid, but like most things under Trump, reality is reversed. Of course, Trump is going to blame every problem of his own making on the Dem Socialists, whom he calls Communists, but they ain't.
In a sick way it is interesting to hear his rants about "the Commies", while encouraging the use of coal and basically denying the last half century of social and scientific progress. And also hearing his thinking that America can easily beat everybody else in the world is at best quaint. It's almost like his brain is stuck in the 1950s. Back then dinosaurs (in the form of white Christian men) ruled and for them life was simple.
But I do laugh. In that period the loony John Birch Society saw Communist influence everywhere. Well, Putin's past that ideology (he's a Russian ultranationalist), but in one sense the Birchers were finally right. By golly, there is an agent of Moscow in the White House!
Of course, Democrats are not communists. However, why aren't Democrats amplifying that MAGAs are fascist? That IS real. I doubt that the vast majority of American voters are eager to embrace a return to NAZIism. I cannot recall hearing a single Democrat reject being called a communist. Dems do not even bother to make MAGAs defend their use of the term. Do it enough and the MSM will get into the act.
All of Thom's points supporting Democratic social progressivism are on target and plentiful as voters get broker and brokerer. The problem is that the Democratic Party does a lousy job of consistently explaining their goals & platforms, and then linking them to restoring our failing Democracy while improving our quality of life. DNC needs more Hoggs and fewer Lamborghini drivers. David drives straight; so do AOC, Bernie, Liz Warren, etc.
Trump may be Cohnizing, but he is also aware that presidents during wars often get elected. Ergo, while we pay daily for the Iran circus, Trump is hoping it will build support for his macho patriotic movement - bone spurs and all.
Reprinted below is my Substack post of July 5, 2026 which may be useful in augmenting Thom's current post by presenting more historical information about the communist scare tactic. I think it is important to get full and acurate information to people so they can defend themselves against the deluge of false information that the current administration is going to try to use to stay in power. The truth shall set us free. I paste below.
Trump accuses ‘godless communists’ of being the greatest threat to the US since WWII
So, Trump is on his communist rampage again. According to him, they are coming out of the woodwork like cockroaches.
I want to clear up a couple misconceptions which decades of Right Wing suppression and misrepresentation of information have spawned. This may shock you, but let’s get one thing straight. There is no such thing as Communism. It was the brain child of Karl Marx who made it up as his predicted outcome of the people’s proletariat revolution that was supposed to replace capitalism. It was supposed to be a perfect utopia, free of racism, sexism and class distinctions, where resources were shared “from each according to their ability, and to each according to their need." For the most part, it would contain no government at all. Marx said that what we currently think of as the "state" was just a means of enforcing bourgeois control and would no longer be necessary.
However, none of this ever happened. And it never will. It is an idealized fiction, a utopia, and utopias, like unicorns, don't happen.
What did happen is that Lenin co-opted Marx’s ideas by replacing the move to this idealized communism with Lenin’s “dictatorship of the proletariat,” which was actually the dictatorship of the Russian Communist Party, or in other words, a plain, old dictatorship. So, instead of progressing to this fictional, idealized, communist state, things got waylaid in dictatorial socialism
So, there is not now, nor has there ever been, a communist country on the face of this planet. What are often described as communist countries are actually, and by their own admission, socialist countries—by which they mean that the government has taken ownership and control of the economy. China calls itself socialist. Even before the breakup of the Soviet Union, it was officially The Union of Soviet SOCIALIST Republics. Their excuse is that the people are not ready for the pure state of communism, so the government must run things until the people are ready—which, of course, never happens.
So, why do people run and scurry when demagogues start yelling that “the communist rabble is at the gate”? The communist threat was made up after WWII to scare the American people into giving up aspirations to put safeguards in our economy so it wouldn’t cause the kind of suffering we saw during the Great Depression. The threat was that these Commies were out to take government control of everyone’s wealth and business.
Now, make no mistake. During the 1930s, the Communist Party of America had a strong presence in the US. People were desparate for answers, and the theories of Karl Marx provided a theoretical justification that helped people push for such programs as Social Security, Unemployment Compensation, employment Works Programs, and more. And these programs were the basis of the strong, healthy middle class we saw in the 50s and 60s. And there were some at the time who saw nationalization of American business and industry as a logical solution to the suffering that unbridled capitalism had created. But there was never any fear that such radical restructuring of the US economy was within reach. The oligarchs yelled that Rosevelt was a socialist. But by instituting some socialist programs to eleviate suffering, Rosevelt actually saved capitalism by limiting some of the destructive tendencies inherent in it.
The Communist Party USA still exists today as, in my opinion, an insipid, anachronism, with few members and no real impact. It is not now and never was against the law to belong to it. Our Constitution makes it difficult to outlaw thoughts, and it had broken no laws.
Rather, the “Red Scare” was the ruling class’s tactic to put a stop to the progressive forces that had won benefits for working people during the 30s. So, Joseph McCarthy and buddies set up Congressional subcommittees that subpoenaed suspected communists, branded them guilty if they didn’t turn over the names of their subversive friends, blacklisted them so they could not work to feed their families, and, without any recourse to the due process guaranteed in the Constitution, basically ruined people’s lives. It was a scourge that imprinted fear like the Black Plague and instilled a terror that is invoked to this day when some sociopathic, political misanthrope senses they are losing control and wants to strike a fear that gets people back in line. It’s just that simple.
The economic and political crises we are now facing is, I feel, causing people to look for new ideas, and the recent successes of democratic socialists must reflect that. We really need to be clear here. There is absolutely no similarity or relationship between the socialism enforced by dictatorship in coutries like China, Cuba, and North Korea and the democratic socialism in play today in the US. Democratic socialists only believe in achieving political goals through the democratic process—not through an authoritarian takeover like happened in Russia. Nor are they espousing a total replacement of capitalism. They are proposing systems that would maintain a balance so the working class would get a fair shot.
Democratic socialist political parties are prevalent around the world and generally place an emphasis on the importance of government ownership and operation of business such as we see in the postal services, fire department, police, libraries, schools, and sidewalks. However, from what I gleen, this new, democratic socialism developing in the US has broadened the meaning to include support for anything that benefits the working class, and this could include establishing government owned and operated businesses (like setting up grocery stores to bring prices down by providing competition to privately-owned ones) , but also just instituting government policies that benefit working people (like placing rent controls in certain areas.).
It seems confusing to have disperate definitions of democratic socialism, but if this new kind delivers rent freezes, affordable child care, competition in grocery stores, and free busses, who am I to quibble over what is basically a difference in emphasis? What is important is to educate and reassure people that the democratic socialism movement is a political vehicle for uniting people to fight for relief from their present suffering. It bases its power on democracy, and it has nothing to do with communism which doesn’t actually exist anyway, has never existed, and won’t ever exist—except maybe as the economic system on Star Trek.
Oh and, by the way, antifa doesn’t exist either. It is another boogie man made up by cynical politicians to scare people into accepting the status quo. Beware of political forces which make up threats and then elicit your support by promising to protect you from them.
Thanks for reading Shea’s Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Well, no one has sent me a card to carry for that. Never got one for Antifa either. I would venture to say Jesus might have seen the merit in some form of communism. He owned nothing and no one, unlike TRump.
We need to beat them over the head with "affordability" and the truth. Let's talk about who has created all the jobs.
I like to point out that other nations are not richer or smarter than we are, but they have managed to figure out health care, education, and a decent retirement. Our "dark age" of TRump and his Syndicate will end. The corruption is going to get them domestically. The murders in the waters off South America and in Gaza are going to get them internationally. See you in the streets.
.
After reading the first three paragraphs I am again beyond astounded that there is no PUSH BACK or mule kicking about this vicious language usage towards fellow Americans. This is where our Democratic party has abandoned us. No push back on this kind of malignancy of thinking and speaking that some MAGAt believers will believe and possibly act on. Where are our defenders? And then they ask for donations?
It's so absurdly difficult to cancel my subscription (financial need) and get a refund with the Hartmann report. WTF. I'm just going to cancel and say a few words that I cannot repeat here. Shame on you.
Past performance IS a guarantee of future results. https://protectthemidterms2026.substack.com/p/the-third-red-scare
Holy shit, think we're occupying the same plane today? https://sabrinahaake.substack.com/p/the-red-scare-is-coming-from-inside?r=17fuyn&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
Excellent presentation, Thom. One tiny bone to pick: "...the main tenant of communism is that the government owns the businesses...." I'm pretty sure you meant to say 'tenet,' not 'tenant.'
Comparing trump to McCarthy suggests this quote from Marx's (Karl, not Groucho) XVIII Brumaire: "Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce."
WE ARE ENDURING A VERY SAD AND DIFFICULT TIME IN AMERICA NOW. UNLESS ALMIGHTY GOD CHOOSES TO TAKE TRUMP AWAU FROM US, AS I HOPE, WE HAVE 30 MORE MONTHS OF THIS DERANGED NARCISSIT DOING HIS BEST TO WRECK AMERICAN DEMOCRACY..
WE CAN ALWAYS HOPE. PERHAPS "VENOUS INSUFFICIENCY, WITH THE HELP OF A FEW DOZRN BIG MACS, DOUBLE CHEESE, WILL RESOLVE OUR NATIONAL DILEMNA.
Malcolm Nance calls it a “Patriotic’ burger