The Red Scare Rerun

Trump’s latest scapegoating scare tactic is vintage nonsense with a fundraising link

“Communist” is wonderfully vague, which is exactly why it works as a scare word.

President Trump’s political operation has apparently decided that blaming immigrants has gotten a little stale, like a campaign hat left too long in a golf cart. So now comes the shiny new scapegoat: communists.

You can almost hear the meeting. “Sir, the immigrant thing still plays with the base, but some voters are starting to notice that immigrants are their coworkers, neighbors, nurses, roofers, restaurant cooks, and the guy who fixed the air conditioner during a heat wave. We need something more abstract. Something spooky. Something nobody has to define.”

Enter communists.

It makes sense, in the same way a late-night infomercial makes sense if you have not slept in three days. “Communist” is wonderfully vague. It can mean a labor organizer, a public school teacher, a librarian, a college professor, a teenager with a reusable water bottle, or anyone who thinks billionaires should pay taxes without being applauded for their generosity afterward.

The great advantage of a communist panic is that it requires no actual communists. In fact, actual communists would only complicate things by having books, arguments, and a lot of meetings. What Trump’s handlers need is not a political theory. They need a fog machine. They need a word that can be sprayed over anything remotely humane until voters think affordable insulin is the first step toward Soviet tractor ownership.

Affordable health care? Communist.

Student debt relief? Communist.

Public libraries? Suspiciously communist.

A teacher buying pencils for her classroom? Clearly, the opening scene of a Marxist takeover.

A working person saying, “Maybe my boss should not own three houses while I ration groceries”? Red alert. Somebody call the Founding Fathers and tell them democracy has gone too far.

Immigrants were useful villains for a while, but they are inconveniently human. People meet them. They work with them. They worship with them. Their kids go to school together. At some point, even fear has to compete with reality. It becomes harder to convince people that the man repairing the bridge, harvesting the food, or caring for the elderly is secretly plotting to replace the Constitution with a taco truck.

Communists, on the other hand, are perfect. They are everywhere and nowhere. They can be hiding in universities, unions, school boards, food banks, public transit proposals, climate policy, and books with chapters. They do not need names, faces, or plans. They only need to appear in a fundraising email between “urgent” and “give now.”

That is the whole trick. The word does not have to mean anything precise. It only has to make people stop thinking for five seconds. It is a political smoke alarm installed directly inside the nervous system. Ring it loudly enough, and people will run toward the nearest strongman promising to save them from the neighborhood association.

Meanwhile, the actual agenda remains beautifully untouched. Cut taxes for the rich. Weaken labor. Privatize what should belong to the public. Turn every social problem into a culture war. Blame anyone except the people hoarding the wealth. Then, when ordinary Americans ask why rent is impossible, wages are flat, health care is expensive, and groceries feel like a luxury subscription service, just point dramatically at a librarian and whisper, “Marx.”

This is not leadership. It is politics as haunted house management. Every room has a new monster. The immigrant in the basement. The communist in the attic. The woke teacher behind the curtain. The trans kid in the hallway. The environmentalist under the bed. And somehow, no matter which monster you are told to fear, the exit always leads directly to a donation page.

The funniest part is that Trump, a man whose entire public brand is gold-plated excess, is now supposed to be the defender of ordinary Americans against radical elites. This is like hiring a casino owner to teach restraint, or asking a yacht to explain modesty. But in the theater of American panic, consistency is less important than volume. If you say “communist” loudly enough, some people will forget they are being robbed by capitalism in real time.

Still, give the handlers credit. They understand that fear needs fresh packaging. Immigrants were last season’s panic. Communists are the reboot. Same script, new villain, louder music.

Coming soon: your neighbor’s recycling bin is a Bolshevik cell, your library card has been radicalizing the suburbs, and the real enemy of America is a school lunch program with suspiciously equal portions.

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