That's what Trump did – Harris' “Kamala” – who won in November. More than 77 million Americans votes were approved (49.9% of the vote), and Trump brought the strategy to his second term.
“What he is talking about is not communism”
In 2025, communism has played a huge role in countries such as China, Vietnam, North Korea and Cuba. But not the United States.
“The core of communism is that governments perform better than the market in providing goods and services. Few people in the West believe this seriously,” said Raymond Robertson of the School of Government and Public Services in A&M University in Texas. “Unless they think the government should run our steel and Tesla, they are not communists at all.”
On the other hand, even now, the term “communist” can carry a huge emotional power. In contemporary social media and misinformation, this is derogatory, although often inaccurate, and even dangerous. After all, fear and paranoia about the Russian Revolution, the “Red Panic”, World War II, McCarthyism and the Cold War are growing. But Trump (78) is known for labeling people who he considers to be a barrier.
“We cannot let a few communist left-wing judges get in the way of our law enforcement,” Trump said Tuesday in Michigan. The White House did not answer Trump's request to call someone a “communist.”
His timing of using the “communist” is worth noting.
Trump's Michigan speech was delivered within a week of economic and political news. A few days ago, the Associated Press-Nok Public Affairs Center published a poll showing that more and more Americans disagree with Trump’s priorities rather than agreeing with them, and that many Republicans are ambivalent about his focus choices.
After the speech, the administration reported that the economy shrank in the first quarter of 2025 as Trump’s tariffs destroyed business.
Presidential aide Stephen Miller took the White House podium on Thursday and spoke the same C word in about 35 minutes, amid condemning past policies on transgender, diversity and immigration.
“These are some areas where President Trump and the cancer that destroys this country, communism awakens culture,” Miller told reporters.
His word collection provides social media users with a variety of baits, as well as terms that may attract the attention of older Americans. Voters over 45 voted in favor of Trump in 2020 and 2024 against his democratic rivals.
Miller's sentence is hit in the middle: “Communist”.
“This is often a term that is full of negative impact, especially for older people who grew up during the Cold War,” said Jacob Neiheisel, a political communication expert at the University of Buffalo.
“Adding emotional terms to political opponents is a way to minimize legitimacy in the eyes of the public and map them in a negative way.”
The “Red Panic” era affects a young Trump
The threat of communists who could influence or even eliminate the United States has been wandering around the country for decades and have driven some of the country's ugliest chapters.
The years after World War I and the Russian Revolution in 1917, as well as a wave of immigration, led to the “Red Panic” of 1920, a period of intense paranoid about the potential of the American-led American Revolution.
“McCarthyism” after World War II meant pursuing the so-called communists. It was named after Joseph McCarthy, a Wisconsin Republican who conducted a televised hearing in the dawn of the Cold War, which brought anti-communist fears to new heights with a range of threats, allusions and inauthenticity.
Culturally, the latest advice on communism’s “softness” could end careers and destroy lives. The “blacklist” suspected of the Communist Party has surged in Hollywood and elsewhere. McCarthy died in 1957.
During the hearing, Senator’s chief adviser Roy Cohn became Trump’s mentor and fixed person in the 1980s and 1990s when Trump became a real estate tycoon in New York. The Cold War has been around for more than 30 years. The threat of nuclear war is everywhere.
Communism began to collapse in 1989, and the Soviet Union was dissolved two years later. Now it is Russia, led by President Vladimir Putin.
But communism lives in China in at least one form, and Trump is launching a trade war that could lead to fewer, more expensive products in the United States.
By the weekend, Trump admitted his administration had stepped on potential consequences: Americans may soon be unable to buy what they want, or they may be forced to pay more. He insists that China will be hurt by tariffs.
Robertson said that true modern debate is not between capitalism and communism, but how much and when the government needs to intervene. He suggested that, by any means, Trump is not really debating communism and capitalism.
“Unfortunately, people who claim communists are more involved in communists are typical misleading political rhetoric, which gets along well with busy voters who don't have much time to think about technological definitions and economic paradigms,” he said in an email. “It's really helpful for Trump, too, because it's inflammatory and makes people angry, which can be addictive.”
