Trump dusts off Red Scare playbook to stop 'mini-Mamdanis'

Wave of 'mini-Mamdanis' reignites anti-communist Red Scare playbook from Trump ahead of midterm elections Sat 1 Aug 2026 at 11:24am US President Donald Trump and Republicans have been raising the alarm with voters about what they say is an impending political apocalypse for over a month. Their dramatic warnings speak of a "dark road of death" and "a philosophical war to save" the United States itself. The threat, according to them: communism. Their argument goes like this: If Democrats regain control of both houses of congress in the November midterm elections, they will intentionally dismantle the country from the inside-out. The solution was clear, Republican National Committee spokesperson Max Lippel told the ABC. "It's common sense versus communism at the ballot box," he said. "Republicans are on offence to ensure Americans know exactly what Democrats stand for and that their radical agenda is rejected in November." Republicans are unified in this message — and it's one voters will likely hear more of in the lead up to election day. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said on Fox News last month: "Crazy communist lunatics … will steal everything you know and love in this nation, and they will never, ever let you have it back." Mr Trump has also made many attempts to warn the public, saying at a recent rally in Georgia that the threat is unprecedented. "Including even World War I and World War II, Pearl Harbour, 9/11, I think it's the greatest threat that I've ever seen to our country," he said. "These people are stone cold, crazy." And House Speaker Mike Johnson has gone as far as to say "communist" Democrats are a threat to voters' personal safety. "I hoped and prayed it would never come to this, but here we are, the barbarians are in the gate … they are a danger to you and your family." Socialism's US resurgence The spike in anti-communist rhetoric has coincided with the growing popularity and influence of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), a progressive political organisation with chapters in all US states. Politicians who are DSA members mostly run as Democrats, and even actively target establishment centrist Democrats to defeat in primary races. High-profile members in public office include New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Democratic socialism is distinct from communism, although the true definition of both is often debated. Both advocate for a society where people who sell their labour for money own the means of production, as opposed to owners making profit off of their work. Communism is a more radical form of socialism that is often defined as abolishing the state and any private ownership entirely. The DSA's policy platform is centred around creating "a world where no-one suffers … and everyone is free, equal, and cared for" through universal healthcare, affordable housing and stronger labour unions. Bigger picture policies include ending voter suppression, removing corporate money from politics and abolishing the electoral college and senate. In the past year candidates they've backed have stacked up dozens of Democratic primary wins across the local, state and federal level. All those winners will be on the ballot as Democrats when election day rolls around in November. Earlier this month Mr Johnson referred to them as "crazy little mini-Mamdanis popping up all around the country". DSA membership has surged in recent years, growing from about 6,500 in 2012 to surpassing 120,000 this year, the organisation says. Polling indicates socialism is particularly popular with younger Americans. A recent Cato Institute poll found Gen Z Americans had a more favourable view of socialism (53 per cent) than capitalism (45 per cent). Republicans reanimate Red Scare Part of the Trump administration's response to the DSA's recent success has been to reanimate the anti-Soviet and anti-Communist talking points of the Cold War-era Red Scare, said Clay Risen, a historian and New York Times journalist. "It's the same story, it's the same basic playbook, it's the same back and forth about what is acceptable in America," he said. The First Red Scare was influenced heavily by the Russian and German revolutions of 1917 and 1918, which both overthrew imperial monarchs and initially established socialist republics. The growing workers' rights movement inside the United States also contributed to an atmosphere of paranoia about communism brewing at home. Socialism and labour demands were intentionally made out to be one unified front by their opponents, often to crush the demands of workers, said author and communist historian Henry Prown. "The collapse of the two into one often served more to slander labour activists as foreign radicals than to accurately describe co-affiliations," he said. "Labour activists were persecuted as murderers, gangsters, and terrorists." Mr Trump recently said communists wanted to blow up Mount Rushmore. The second and more aggressive Red Scare came immediately after the end of World War II, with the start of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. It was only intensified by the Chinese Communist Party taking power in 1949 following decades of civil war. Mr Risen released a book last year about the history of anti-communism hysteria in the US during this era. He said the legitimate hunt for soviet spies was regularly used as a justification to target tens of thousands of Americans with real or even perceived left-wing views. "So for someone to be a communist had a literal meaning in America and an important meaning, but it was also weaponised and blown out of proportion," he said. "If you use those terms and you demonise them, then it was easier to marginalise them, if not to criminalise the activities they were undertaking." In the early 1950s, Senator Joe McCarthy used a series of hearings to accuse American journalists, public servants and military personnel of treason, for their supposed role as soviet spies. Essentially all of McCarthy's evidence would prove entirely false, including fabricated documents and photos, but only after thousands of government workers were fired (~2,700) or quietly resigned (~12,000). This period would come to be known as McCarthyism. Americans were also targeted and blacklisted in the entertainment industry, as well as LGBTQ people, known as the Lavender Scare. Special counsel on McCarthy's hearings was a young lawyer named Roy Cohn, who would later become the lawyer and mentor of a young Donald Trump. Is Red Scare 3.0 a winning strategy? Mr Risen said Republicans were using anti-communist talking points to portray policies many voters wanted as anti-American. "A lot of people understand that large parts of the economy are broken, that our tax system is broken, that it definitely favours the wealthy," he said. "And so people who come along and say, 'Let's fix that', that's very appealing to a lot of Americans." House Speaker Mike Johnson said last month: "This is not a game, if they promise you free stuff, there is far more beneath those promises that even some of these people do not understand themselves." Speaking at a Christian faith conference on June 27, Mr Trump said "godless communists" would destroy religious freedoms and ultimately cause the destruction of the United States entirely. "They will close your churches in this country, they go communist … they will kill your people, and that's what they're about, they want to end religion," he said. "And as this spreads throughout the country, very much like an uncontrollable form of cancer, the country itself will be taken down." In a statement, White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales told the ABC: "The Democrats' embrace of socialism and communism is an existential threat to our country as these radicals proudly pledge to abolish prisons, private property, police, and even the presidency. President Trump will keep calling out their radicalism and draw a sharp contrast with his America First agenda. The choice between common sense and crazy has never been more clear." Mr Risen said the Trump administration could get more aggressive as the midterms get closer. "I wouldn't be surprised if Trump, because he has so much power … uses it to criminalise political movements, to criminalise political speech, to do a lot of the things that were done during the Red Scare," he said. "There's a lot of legislation that's still on the books that gives the president and congress power to go after people who espouse communistic or radical ideas." 'Fruit of the same poisonous tree' The DSA does not define its policy platform as communist, but Mr Risen said Republicans would still say they are to paint the entire Democratic Party as extremist and tap into many Americans' fear of soviet-era communism. "[Trump is] trying to say, 'Well, socialist, democrat, socialist, communist, it's all the same'. In the past, that's been a very effective attack … a certain number of Americans are going to very quickly jump on his bandwagon." A Republican operative told the ABC they are making these links because they genuinely see some DSA policies as communist. They said this recent Fox News interview with DSA co-chair Megan Romer, in which she supports having government control of large corporations, proves it. Other reporting out of the US has suggested this link has also been a deliberate Republican strategy. A memo prepared for the House Republican Conference by polling firm co/efficient, as recently reported by the Washington Examiner, advised its members to "do your best" to link socialism and Marxism to communism. "Americans still hold communism as far more dangerous and alarming than socialism and Marxism," the memo read. "So do not retreat to the softer label just because socialism alarms fewer in the abstract. Connect all three, fruit of the same poisonous tree, and let the family name carry the alarm."