President Donald Trump has been using "Red Scare" techniques in the 2026 midterm elections, characterizing all Democrats as democratic socialists regardless of whether they actually are (like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani) or not (Michigan US Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed). Now Trump's Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, is describing people who support candidates like Mamdani — and perhaps even like El-Sayed — as being underachievers.
“When you talk about socialism here in the U.S., and when you look at the demographic of those voters, they are over-educated and under-earning,” Bessent told Fox Business' Larry Kudlow while speaking at the Group of 20 finance ministers' summit in Asheville, NC.
He added, “These are underachievers who are jealous of those who want to go and work every day."
One irony of this argument is that many experts perceive Trump's own policies as socialistic, at least insofar as he directly meddles in the economy rather than allowing the free market to work unimpeded.
“I don't think of it as communism, although the Trump administration is actually a very big-government presidency — taking stakes in big companies and trying to manage them in a fairly inappropriate way,” Dr. Ed Gresser, the Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at the liberal-leaning think tank Progressive Policy Institute, told AlterNet in July. “So it's a bit odd to see them drumming up fears of socialism, since that's very much in the background of a lot of what they've done."
Gresser was not alone in saying this.
“Trump operates with a form of crony capitalism,” Dr. Robert J. Shapiro, a former top economic adviser to President Bill Clinton, told AlterNet in July. “The people who get US contracts, the people who get preferences on tariffs, are those who have influence with him. It ranges from the absurd — where the guy who did the coating for the swimming pool gets a no-bid contract to do the reflecting pool — to all the other no-bid contracts. That's all crony capitalism. And certainly, opening this up could create more opportunities for that.”
Meanwhile a former Republican National Committee Chairman argued that Trump implements socialistic policies for his supporters, but denies it to others.
“Y'all know the Farm Bill is socialism; y'all know that, right?” Michael Steele said on MS NOW in August. “I mean, when you start talking about socialism, it's socialism for you. It's not socialism when I'm accessing the system and I'm getting that SNAP check, and I'm getting that welfare check, and I'm getting that free lunch program, and I'm getting those things that, because I cannot afford it, are part of a safety net. And I wish we would just fundamentally get off our lazy behinds and start understanding how this government uses all of those tools to provide for its citizens.”
