I finally saw one of the awful, awful, awful Trump ads that our tax dollars are paying to run on TV stations across the country. The ad I saw is awful. Just awful. If you haven’t seen it, one of its principal talking points is about how Trump is saving us from the communist threat. In the ad, he says, “America will never be a communist country.”
Ladies and Gentlemen, Donald J. Trump finally has told the truth about something! America will never be a communist country. But I didn’t think it would.
I grew up in the ’60s and ’70s, when communism was a thing, an allegedly organized thing. We spent years and tens of thousands of American lives–and millions of Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian lives–fighting the “communist threat” in Southeast Asia in the ’60s and ’70s. I really thought that we were done with that silliness. (The so-called “Democratic Socialists” haven’t changed my mind. They are not “communist.”)
It’s 2026 now, though Trump and his lackeys seem to wish it was 1950 (or earlier). The Soviet Union has fallen and been replaced by something as bad, but whether you call Russia an oligarchy, kleptocracy, dictatorship, or whatever else, it isn’t communist. China is ostensibly communist, but Trump is rolling out the red carpet for China’s leader, and China isn’t focusing on spreading its communist ideology anyway. The power it is accumulating and projecting is economic and political, not ideological.
Turning to lesser communist or formerly communist regimes, North Korea is not actively spreading communist ideology throughout the world. Neither is Cuba, which is kind of on the ropes at this point. Vietnam is arguably an ally, and is really a market socialist country, and Laos is also reforming its economy.
So the whole communist threat thing is not so much last decade, as last-century. Of course, “communism” is one of those “boo” words which MAGA (and GOP) politicians cynically trot out to arouse fear among followers who don’t understand anything but slogans. But this isn’t a cause for surprise. Trump is obsessed with branding, and to him slogans are the substance.
If there is a communist threat–which I doubt–it may be Trump himself. Trump seems to want to run everything. He is taking government stakes in private companies. The way he talks about Democrats evinces a longing for one-party rule. And remember, MAGA always accuses others of doing what MAGA itself is trying to do.
But putting aside that speculation, the fact that Trump has spent U.S. Government money–our money–to air these commercials certainly is irksome. It’s more than irksome. It’s arguably impeachable. (You know, “high crimes and misdemeanors”?)
But there is a silver lining. The ads clearly are part of Trump’s strategy to get people to pretend that he is on the ballot in the upcoming midterms. (In Trump’s mind, everything has to be about Trump.) I would like that, too: Hey, America, this election is about Trump! C’mon out and vote.
One last thought: If the use of government money to run the ads is illegal, they can serve as one of the counts in impeachment proceedings after the midterms.