Former President Donald Trump is now trying to paint Vice President Kamala Harris as a "communist" in his latest attacks — but even his own supporters aren't taking seriously the threat that communism could take over the United States, columnist Philip Bump wrote for The Washington Post.
His assertion followed GOP strategist Frank Luntz' reporting that Trump's narrative is actually costing him support from necessary voters.
"Trump’s branding skills might be overstated, but he has made red baseball caps an unusually potent political signifier," wrote Bump. Which is ironic, he added, because, "To someone of a certain age — like, say, 78 — red was at one point associated more firmly with the Soviet Union and communism more broadly. ... A 'red' was someone believed to hold views antithetical to the United States, someone to be uprooted from 1950s society and government. It’s interesting, then, to see Trump lean into the idea that the nation faces a new communist threat — one that even his supporters aren’t convinced exists."
Polling indicates that only about 30 percent of Republicans, and fewer than 25 percent of all voters, think a communist dictatorship is even "somewhat" likely in the U.S. in the next decade, Bump reported.
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And Trump himself probably doesn't even mean to be taken literally when he says "communism," noted Bump — rather, he just means she'll govern as a left-wing authoritarian. But "Trump, of course, has repeatedly embraced other right-wing authoritarians and actively endorsed erosions of liberal democracy, making the rejoinder more than a little specious."
Ultimately, Bump concluded, "It’s been noted that Trump is largely a product of the 1980s, and that holds true here. In 1984, about the worst thing you could call someone was a communist. In 2024, that’s about the worst thing Trump can gin up, too."
