U.S. President Donald Trump looks down as he participates in a call with service members (REUTERS)
The Washington Post editorial board says Trump and the Republican Party will need more than name-calling to save them from an upcoming mid-term disaster.
“Trump has mentioned communism more than 80 times in the past two weeks, according to Reuters. In a speech on the eve of America’s 250th anniversary celebrations, he called communism a ‘mortal threat to American liberty’ and ‘the greatest threat to our country.’ He followed up at the NATO conference in Ankara, Turkey, warning that promises of free housing end in ‘squalor’ and ‘disaster.’
While he’s right that the abolition of private property and subordination are at odds with the principles on which the United States was founded and promises of communist utopias have ended in repression and poverty, the reality is that most Americans simply don’t believe that American socialists want to create a Stalinist or Maoist dictatorship.
Trump is up against the curmudgeonly arguments of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) who the Times says is entering his final years “more politically successful than ever, having inspired a younger generation of socialists to take power.”
“Some 38 percent of Americans under 30 say they have a favorable view of communism, according to a recent survey from the Cato Institute,” report the Times. “And 53 percent of Gen Z respondents said they view socialism favorably, compared with 45 percent who said the same of capitalism.”
This suggests that trying to demonize the Democratic Party as “hardcore, godless communists” — as Trump and other senior Republicans have done — is about as effective as trying to brand Trump a fascist before his 2024 election victory.
“These words are losing their force. Labels alone rarely persuade voters. A stronger case must be made by explaining policies and their likely consequences,” said the Times. “Voters want answers on the economy and inflation, not a high school debate over political philosophy. There is no substitute for a policy platform, a lesson Republicans may learn the hard way if they fail to take the cost-of-living crisis more seriously.”
But that is a challenge for Trump, who embraces a wide array of interventionist economic policies himself.
“Taking government stakes in private companies, raising border taxes and bullying companies over prices undermine his warnings about the dangers of socialism. They also set a precedent for a Democratic administration that will seek even more government control,” the Times warned. “If the president wants to persuade voters that the Democratic Party has lurched too far to the left, he should start by ditching his increasingly socialist policies.”
