Trump is trying to start a new Red Scare

It should have been an occasion for a great patriotic speech.

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Instead, the short address said America faced “enemies from within,” casting routine political disagreements as an existential crisis of Christianity against communism and calling for the “twisted warped thinkers” of the opposition to be swept from the national scene.

The year was 1950. The politician was Sen. Joe McCarthy. And the occasion was a dinner marking Abraham Lincoln’s birthday.

That speech has become infamous for helping launch the Red Scare, long considered a stain on American history. But as President Donald Trump stood at Mount Rushmore on the eve of the nation’s 250th anniversary, he matched it beat for beat in remarks that preyed on his base’s religious devotion to falsely paint Democrats as communists:

These are not mere political disagreements, like differences over taxes or regulations. Communism is a mortal threat to American liberty. … The godless communist morality states that anything is justified to bring about inhuman visions. … They don’t want good, they don’t love God, and they don’t want God.

Trump’s speech comes at a very different time than McCarthy’s, however. The West won the Cold War decades ago; the remaining communist countries, such as China and Vietnam, have mixed economies, and even Cuba has adopted some market reforms. The “communists” Trump is attacking are democratic socialists who want to do things like expand Medicare and start city-run grocery stores in needy areas, not seize the means of production.

The times are also different. The month before McCarthy delivered that 1950 speech, personal income was $6.5 billion higher than the year before. The prior decade saw homeownership grow by a staggering 55%, according to the 1950 Census. The ensuing decade would see the median wage grow by 62%.

Americans within the sound of McCarthy’s voice that night in Wheeling had a reason to be optimistic about their economic futures and to see capitalism as a system worth protecting. The senator preyed on that vigilance.

Trump doesn’t have that luxury of optimism. A YouGov poll from late last month found that 71% of Americans rate the economy as “fair” or “poor.” A Gallup poll from this past April found only that 25% of non-homeowners expect to buy a home in the next five years, and 67% said it was a bad time to buy a home — even as Trump still hasn’t signed a bipartisan housing reform bill overwhelmingly passed by Congress.

That shouldn’t come as a surprise, because time and time again, Trump has blocked Congress from making Americans’ lives easier. Instead, he’s attempted to strong-arm the economy like it’s a Republican incumbent seeking his endorsement, using the same government intervention that his party — my party — once stood against.

In fact, if anyone is trying to create a government-run economy, it’s not the democratic socialists; it’s Trump himself.

The president has imposed illegal tariffs and is now subsidizing farmers suffering under those tariffs to the tune of $44 billion by the end of this year. He spearheaded partial state ownership of private companies. As recently as this week, the administration even announced so-called “Freedom Fuel” centers to offset uncertainty at the pump caused by Trump’s war with Iran, which he entered without congressional approval.

All the while, Trump has not only insulated his own riches from the disastrous economic policies he’s implemented, but he’s multiplied them.

Even more sinister, the president has embraced the same authoritarian tactics associated with actual communist leaders. Since Day One of his second term, his administration has worked overtime to purge the federal workforce of anyone he suspects of disloyalty.  His Homeland Security Department has detained people for writing op-eds and flooded cities with masked federal agents. His Justice Department has targeted perceived enemies with the full might of the U.S. criminal justice system.