Why? Trump himself explained the strategy last year when he described how he planned to defeat his Democratic opponent in the White House election, then Vice President Kamala Harris.
“What we have to do is define an opponent as a communist, socialist or someone who is going to destroy our country,” he told reporters at the New Jersey Golf Club in August.
Trump did it – Harris’s “Kamala” brand – he won in November. More than 77 million Americans votes were approved (49.9% of the votes), and Trump included the strategy in his second term.
What he said is not actually “communism” in 2025, which has a great influence in countries such as China, Vietnam, North Korea and Cuba. But not the United States.
“The heart of communism is that governments can do better than the market in providing goods and services. Few people in the West believe this very much,” 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 great emotional power. In contemporary social media and misinformation, this is derogatory (although often inaccurate, even dangerous), and it is more effective. After all, the Russian Revolution, the “Red Panic”, World War II, McCarthyism and the Cold War fear and paranoia are gradually disappearing.
But Trump (78) is known for labeling people who are obstacles.
“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 is hit in the middle of his sentence: “Communist”.
“This is often a term that is full of negative effects, especially for older people who grew up during the Cold War,” said Jacob Neiheisel, a political communications 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 it in a negative way.”
A “red terrorism” figure has affected young Trump, and the Communist Party could influence or even destroy the threat of the United States wandering around the country for decades and has pushed some of the country's ugliest chapters.
The years after World War I and the Russian Revolution in 1917 and a wave of immigration led to the “Red Panic” of 1920, a strong paranoid about the potential of the American-led communist 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 biggest advice for communism “soft” 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 – in at least one form – lives in China, Trump is launching a trade war that could lead to fewer and 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 advocate more government involvement '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 also helpful for Trump because it's inflammatory and makes people angry, which can be addictive.”
