by Mark M. BelloPresident Trump used his Independence Day speech to warn America about what he called a growing communist threat. Here are a few of the “lowlights.”
On its face, indeed, someone who genuinely seeks to replace the Constitution with a communist dictatorship is not embracing constitutional patriotism. The problem is that Trump never clearly defines who he’s talking about. Given his repeated references to progressive Democrats and recent Democratic Socialist election victories, the label sweeps far more broadly than actual communists.
The phrase “communist menace” is almost a direct callback to Cold War rhetoric and McCarthyism. During the Red Scare, “the communist menace” was a standard political refrain used to describe phony infiltration of American institutions.
This is vintage McCarthy. Bad ole Joe framed every issue as “the enemy is among us” rather than disagreements over policy.
History is full of governments describing political opponents as diseases, cancers, infections, or parasites. Such language dehumanizes an ideology and encourages people to view its adherents as something to be eradicated rather than debated.
And it is Trump, not the Democrats, who admires and praises foreign dictators like Putin and Xi.
Trump described communism as America’s greatest threat—even ranking it above dangers such as the world wars or the September 11 attacks. That is an extraordinary claim and invites us to ask what exactly he means by “communism” in today’s American context.
These are but a few of many examples of presidential hate speech. This type of outlandish rhetoric aimed at Trump’s political adversaries is dangerous. And this danger is not in opposing communism. The vast majority of Americans, Democrats and Republicans, oppose communism. The danger is in expanding the definition of “communist” to encompass millions of Americans who disagree with the president’s policies or ideology.
That was one of the central lessons of the McCarthy era. So, what’s the difference between “Communists” and “Democratic Socialists?”
History has taught us that communist governments have committed horrific crimes against their own people. No serious student of history should romanticize Stalin, Mao, or the brutal regimes that followed them.
But history also teaches another lesson: democracies get into trouble when they begin labeling broad groups of political opponents as enemies of the state.
That is why President Trump’s rhetoric reminded me less of the Cold War than of Senator Joseph McCarthy.
McCarthy’s greatest mistake wasn’t that he opposed communism. Millions of Americans opposed communism. His mistake was turning “communist” into a political label broad enough to encompass people with whom he disagreed. Careers were destroyed. Reputations were ruined. Fear replaced reason.
We must be careful not to repeat that mistake.
Today’s political landscape contains genuine communists, democratic socialists, liberals, conservatives, libertarians, progressives, independents, and millions of Americans who don’t fit neatly into any ideological box.
Republicans and Democrats are not all the same—we do not fit into some neat little package on either side of the political aisle.
As I stated earlier, I disagree with many of the policy proposals put forth by the socialist democratic movement. I am particularly troubled by the anti-Israel and anti-Zionist positions taken by its most visible leaders and supporters. I have written extensively about what I view as the rise of antisemitism disguised as anti-Zionism, and I make no apology for that concern.
But Democratic socialism is not the same thing as communism. Not even close. And if we care about truth, we should be willing to acknowledge those differences.
The Constitution demands that we distinguish between ideas we oppose and people who have forfeited their constitutional rights. And that principle applies across the political spectrum.
Over the holiday weekend, neo-Nazis marched in Washington, D.C. Their ideology is built on hatred, racism, antisemitism, and violence. I oppose everything they stand for. But if they marched peacefully, without committing crimes, making true threats, or inciting imminent violence, our Constitution’s 1st Amendment protects their right to do so. That’s the price of living in a free society. The 1st Amendment doesn’t exist to protect the speech we like; it exists to protect the speech we hate. And once the government gains the power to silence one unpopular viewpoint, history teaches us it rarely stops there. And that includes a president who describes a large political movement as “communist.”
Most of us oppose communism.
Most of us defend democracy and the Constitution.
The lesson of McCarthyism is that fear can tempt free societies to abandon the very constitutional principles they claim to defend. America is strongest when we defeat bad ideas through debate, elections, Education, and persuasion—not by casually branding millions of our fellow citizens as ‘enemies of the Republic.’
History has already shown us where that road leads.
We shouldn’t Travel it again.
Mark M. Bello is an attorney and award-winning author of the Zachary Blake Legal Thriller Series, ripped-from-the-headlines, realistic fiction that speaks truth to power and champions the rights of citizens in our justice system. These novels are dedicated to the social justice movement. They educate, spark discussion, and inspire readers to action. One of these was “Betrayal of Justice, a blistering novel about presidential misconduct and hypocrisy” For more information, please visit www.markmbello.com.
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