RE: Trump's obsession with communism. Confused with authoritarianism?

[teach1st]

All of a sudden, there are vile, threatening, godless communists everywhere: in your town, in your schools, in your laundry hampers, crawling up your legs as I post. President Trump says he wants to exile them - especially the ones sneakily masquerading as Democrats, people of color, immigrants, and women.

Personally, I blame him. This supposed Marxist invasion happened on his watch. They weren't exactly a massive force around here earlier in this century, but suddenly, as his second term craters, they're everywhere.

Setting aside whether he even knows what communism is (let’s be honest, he didn't seem to know what was in the Declaration of Independence last night), it makes you wonder: Is he the secret commie? Think about it. He pushes for a one-party system, demands loyalty over competence in federal appointments, uses the Justice Department to target political rivals, and unleashes forces that trample on civil rights.

Wait...that’s not actually communism. That’s authoritarianism.

Authoritarianism doesn't care about economic theories; it happens in communist states and free-market economies alike. Let's stop misusing the economic dictionary. Authoritarianism is the real problem.

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Trump wants communism for billionaires but not for the rest of us

[msongs]

2. its just marketing using a scare word that means less to people than it used to. he cares not about

what the word means of the philosophy behind it all

[Vinca]

3. We need to post lots of pictures of Trump and his Commie BFFs. If anyone loves Commies, it's Trump.

Maybe we could revisit the "love letters" from the previous season's shows.

[GoCubsGo]

4. Or, he's falling back on an old trope because

nothing else is working for him. Accusing people of being "Commies" worked in the 1950s, so he probably thinks it will work again now. Outside of his dwindling cult, nobody's buying that shit.

[lastlib]

5. Confusion? Nah, just stoopid......

He thinks commies are scary boogeymen, so he's throwing the word out to scare people who are also stupid but vote. I'll bet he has a *secret list* of Commies in the gubmint that he's prepared to release in two weeks. He can't use the "caravan" gambit this time around--it has worn out its usefulness to him--so the only other thing his reptilian "jeenyus" brain can come up with is communists. The smoke he blows out of that fat ass of his is a major cause of climate change, I have no doubt.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

6. The GOP has been using this line for a long time

Link to tweet

[orthoclad]

9. I'd go for the radical state-owned socialism.

We've tried everything else, and look where we are.

[peggysue2]

7. Republicans are hoping that . . .

Bringing back the Red Scare from the 1950s and '60s will win the day. Soooo . . . Democratic Socialists are labeled communists. James Talerico pointing out Christian Nationalism as a perversion of Jesus' message is a communist or maybe a demon in human flesh. Mayor Mandami taking a page out of FDR's book is a communist (FDR would be proud, btw). Anyone resisting the Authoritarian playbook is a communist. Anyone attending a No King's rally (myself included) is a communist. For those who have resisted ICE?

Communists!

Civil Rights, Women's Rights, Gay Rights, any kind of rights at all.

Communists!

This is an old trope rearing its ugly head. Think Joe McCarthy. Think Phyllis Schlafly so eager to historically rehabilitate, reshape McCarthy into an American hero.

Republicans have tumbled back through time into the darkness to resurrect the worst of America and call it good, grand, a Golden Age.

Resist. Dissent. Agitate.

And for the love of God:

Vote!

[LeftInTX]

10. They also called FDR a communist.

"His enemies excoriated him as a communist and damned him for disregarding property rights and violating the canons of the capitalist marketplace," Brands explains. "The wealthy denounced him for having betrayed the class of his birth. Time magazine devoted a lead article to the ‘burning bitterness’ the better-off felt for Roosevelt."

As critics branded the New Deal as a step toward Communism, Roosevelt and his administration blasted the naysayers as narrow-minded agents of greed.

"Communism is merely a convenient bugaboo," Interior Secretary Harold Ickes said. "It is the Fascist-minded men of America who are the real enemies of our institutions through their solidarity and their ability and willingness to turn the wealth of America against the welfare of America."

Roosevelt would not retreat, Brands says, and he continued to battle critics throughout his presidency to radically alter the landscape of American expectations.

https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/history/news/feature-archive/fdr-traitor-to-his-class-historian-h-w-brands-reviews-roosevelt-s-command-performance-popular-appeal-and-depression-era-policies.html

He also addressed communism at his re-nomination speech in 1936. However, I think some of the context is lost to us
https://speakola.com/political/franklin-d-roosevelt-let-me-warn-you-reelection-1936

• "The Russian newspapers during the last election [1932] published the photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt over the caption, 'The first communistic President of the United States,'" said Sen. Thomas Schall, a Republican from Minnesota. "Evidently the Russian newspapers had knowledge concerning the ultimate intent of the President, which had been carefully withheld from the voters in this country. In fact, the voters of the United States were meticulously misled as to such intentions."

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2009/sep/22/barack-obama/obama-roosevelt-socialist-communist/

[orthoclad]

8. He''s flashing on his mentor, McCarthy's sidekick Cohn.

Tried and true. Has worked plenty of times in history.

Maybe this shows he's running low on mental resources. No fresh insults of the grade of Sleepy Joe.

[DemocracyForever]

11. Time to call Trump/GOP what they are

Nazis! The Trump/GOP agenda is the same agenda as the Nazis and we need to keep saying it. We also need to use the word dictator instead of authoritarian. Dictator better gets people's attention where authoritarian goes over too many people's heads.

[superpatriotman]

12. He suckled at the rotten teat of Roy Cohn

This is what he was taught to do when you lose at everything else.

[ProfessorGAC]

13. No. It's Just A Buzzword

He can't even spell communism, let alone what it is or isn't.