Communists! Communists!

Republicans have settled on the wrong smear.

I don't think "communist" lands. 

     "The Bolshevik takeover of the Democrat Party is in full swing and communism is on the ballot this November. Against freedom. Make no mistake about that. The lines have never been more clear in an election."  

    Steve Scalise, GOP House Majority Leader, standing beside Speaker Mike Johnson

Mike Johnson used the same language. 

The question before Congress is whether we will preserve our constitutional republic OR chart a fundamentally different course that leads us down the ROAD TO COMMUNISM.

Trump leaned back to Soviet days when he called Democrats "hardcore, godless communists."

America's pundits and headline writers noticed the point of attack. 

--  "GOP REBOOTS THE RED SCARE AS YOUNG DEMOCRATS EMBRACE SOCIALISM"

--  "GOP 'RED SCARE' AS REPUBLICANS ATTACK DEMOCRATS AS 'COMMUNISTS.'

Republicans are making Zohran Mamdani the face of the Democratic Party, and then defining him as a communist. There are problems with this message. Mamdani is not a communist, and he has established a brand as a happy, smiling guy with a populist people-friendly set of policies. 

 

He describes his policies as the continuation of FDR and New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia. The policies that he is becoming known for are keeping in place the tough-on-crime police commissioner, fixing potholes that needed fixing, initiating free bus routes that speed up bus movement, and making daycare free for preschoolers. The message isn't about control. It is about livability and government for the people. It isn't a scary message.

There is a "tell" in the GOP decision to call Mamdani a "communist" rather than a Muslim. Mamdani's position on Israel is less sympathetic to Israel and more sympathetic to Palestinians than is the average American's. Americans are rethinking how we feel about Israel because Israel has squandered the goodwill and trust it had coming into this century. Attacking Mamdani for not embracing Israel would position Republicans as being uncritical of Israel, and that position is no longer tenable for Republicans.

Democrats are feeling their way on how to create their own post-Trump brand. They will probably raise taxes. Democrats are deciding what kind of tax on billionaires -- or at least multi-millionaires -- Americans will accept. Coming into this decade, tech billionaires were understood to be visionary successes. Elon Musk invented a cool electric car; Bill Gates was a philanthropist; Jeff Bezos was an angel investor in The Washington Post. The bloom is off that rose. Elon is a visionary still, but a wild man with a chain saw, a dozen children, and too much money to throw into elections; Gates has an Epstein scent on him, and Bezos prioritizes pleasing Trump, not preserving a great newspaper. Technology is addicting our kids, artificial intelligence will take our jobs, and the billionaires are building data centers that demand tax breaks. It won't hurt Democrats to be called a "communist" for taxing billionaires.

Trump has muddled the case against "socialism." Trump is a big government politician, who demanded government get a share of prominent businesses. Trump doesn't oppose "industrial policy." He likes rewarding businesses that support him. The public doesn't care about whether something is publicly-owned, partially-publicly-owned, or fully private. It cares about whether it is efficient and cheap. 

"Communism" is a poor line of attack. Democrats will be in  political trouble if they fail to raise taxes on billionaires and attempt income redistribution. 

The weak spot for Democrats is not the change they might enact. It is the change they do not enact when they have the chance. Democrats can't get stuff done.

The GOP's best approach would be to criticize Democratic rule-bound inefficiency. They cannot build houses. They cannot build a high-speed rail in California. They could not stop flagrant border crossing by immigrants. They want to argue over set-asides for minorities, for college admission quotas, for reparations, for trans athletes, for project-stopping salamanders, for environmental rules that keep environmental projects from being built, and for high state income taxes to pay for public employees. Democratic cities have had homeless encampments on streets for year after year. No wonder people are leaving high-tax blue states to move to low-tax red states. Portland, Oregon, may lose the Trail Blazers to Nashville, Tennessee for goodness sake. Losers!

Trump, for all his many, many faults, represents a "get it done" tone. He does change badly, crudely, cruelly, corruptly, but he represents action. He did what Biden did not: He stopped the flow of immigrants across the southern border.  Action means change. 

I think the political vulnerability of Democrats is the opposite of an attack on Mamdani. Mamdani might change things. He might get stuff done. That is the brand Democrats should want.

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