Donald Trump has a new favoriteword. He's been callingDemocrats "Communists" ever since a few democratic socialists won some House primaries. "These are hardcore, godless Communists," he toldthe Faith & Freedom Coalition conference last month. "This is the mostserious threat to our country since its existence." GOP House Speaker MikeJohnson, the ever-loyal shih tzuon his emperor's lap, has picked it up, as well. The midterms, he saidrecently, will pit "common sense versus communism."

Well. The first question here iswhether Americans even know what communism is (or was) anymore. There are fivecountries in the world that still call themselves Communist, but one of thoseis China, which at least in economic terms barely counts (the others are Cuba,North Korea, Vietnam, and Laos). More than that, it's getting to be close to 40years now since the Eastern bloc collapsed. A person would have to be at least45 years old to have any memory of all that. Right now, 57.5 percent ofAmericans are underthat age.

As you'd expect, young people whoweren't alive to see how cruel, corrupt, and lethargic the Soviet Union was eitherdon't know much about communism or don't see it as such a bad thing. A pollreleased last week by the libertarian Cato Institute had some interestingnumbers. Among all Americans, capitalism was viewed favorably by just 52percent (that's the number that would be worrying me if I were a Friedmanesquefree marketeer; it's insanely low!). Socialism was viewed favorably by 37percent. And communism got a thumbs-up from 21 percent.

That's overall. Among respondentsunder 30 years old, 38 percent said they had a favorable view of communism. Butin the Queens of Donald Trump's youth, calling someone a Commie packed a realwallop, so he clearly thinks it still can.

The word doesn't actually apply toany of these people he's trying to condemn, of course. As I notedlast week, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Zohran Mamdani, and even BernieSanders himself aren't really socialists, in the proper historical sense of theword. I don't hear any of them calling for the state to seize the means ofproduction, which is the basic historical position of socialism. They're socialdemocrats.

The only one among the crop who hasapparently saida few nice things about actual communism is Darializa Avila Chevalier, the32-year-old who won the Democratic primary in an upper Manhattan district. Herleftism appears to be much more of the campus-radical variety than Mamdani'ssewer socialism; we'll see in two years whether the voters of her district aregood with that, or whether she has indeed "grown considerably" since she wrotethose social media posts.

Meanwhile, on the Fourth of July, abunch of white supremacists from something called the Patriot Front felt athome enough in Trump's Washington to marchin front of the Capitol wearing masks, sunglasses, and ballcaps with thegroup's logo boldly displayed and carrying an array of flags, including theConfederate flag. (These ghouls undoubtedly went unmasked during the pandemicto protest supposedly totalitarian public health policies, and now they'redressing like totalitarians in an attempt to terrorize regular people.)  

And that night, of course, America, or thatportion of it that was interested, listened to another windy address from apresident who once invited avowed white supremacist Nick Fuentes to dine withhim at his house and told the extremist Proud Boys to stand by.

That same president participatedback in May in Rededicate250, a Christian nationalist prayer gathering that, whatever its organizerssaid, was clearly intended to pound home the idea that the United States issupposed to be a Christian nation, which of course it is not. DemocraticRepresentative Jared Huffman of California accurately told PBS that the event"would have the Founders rolling in their graves." 

This doesn't begin toscratch the surface of right-wing radicalism in this country, most of whichTrump tacitly or sometimes explicitly endorses with rhetoric that's clearlyfascist. And beyond Trump himself, many rank-and-file Republicans are shockingextremists; remember Nazismingling openly at the 2024 CPAC conference, or thoseleaked text messages by young Republicans last fall ("I love Hitler")?

It's crystal clear in a factualsense which party is more radical today. The Democrats could elect two dozensocialists and they stillwouldn't be anywhere near as far left as the GOP has gone far right. Oh,and by the way: For all the media attention socialist candidates get when theywin, it's still a fact that on balance, mainstream and even centrist Democratsare winning more primaries this year. The Cook Political Report revealedover the weekend that in the 22 GOP-controlled congressional districtswhere Democrats have held primaries so far, 14 have been won by candidates withmainstream and centrist backing. Only four have been won by candidates backedby the Progressive Caucus. So in swing districts, Democratic voters are stillmainly choosing the nominees they calculate have a better shot at winningsuch a district.

But we're going to be hearing allabout Communists for the next four months. Trump is obviously trying to makethe midterms a referendum on the Democratic Party and not on him. 

History tellsus this rarely works. It didn't work for him in 2018, when he was around40 percent in the polls and tried to make the dreaded caravan headed towardthe Rio Grande from Central America the central issue. And the economy wascomparatively good then, unlike now, when a soaring stock market is benefitingthe rich while most Americans continue to struggle with Trump-juiced inflation.

So Democrats, who tend to freak outabout things, should not freak out about this. Sure, communism is a scary word,at least to people of a certain age and ideological bent. But I'd imagine very few people whoaren't dyed-in-the-wool MAGA believe the Democratic Party is a bunch of Communists. I hope that instead of lamely denying it and moving on to gasprices, they have the guts to fight fire with fire and point out to voters whothe real extremists in this country are.