House Republicans have gotten their marching orders about how to frame their propaganda heading into the midterms.
As President Donald Trump and his party face widespread disapproval, the House GOP conference is being advised to try to salvage its majority by grooming the public into thinking liberals are communists. The plan to do so is laid out explicitly in a strategic memo prepared for House Republicans by conservative firm co/efficient, and perhaps the most interesting takeaway is the guidance on falsely painting democratic socialists — who have seen key wins in recent primary elections — as communists.
The memo advised:
Americans still hold communism as far more dangerous and alarming than socialism and Marxism. That is an important indicator for Members: do your best to connect all three together, because these government systems are fruit of the same poisonous tree.
The document, dated July 20, added:
Communism rings the loudest alarm with constituents (42 percent name it the most dangerous system), 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.
Noteworthy here is that a recent CNBC survey found democratic socialism is more popular than MAGA ideology. As my colleague Zeeshan Aleem noted, the findings suggest the Democratic Party should stop panicking over democratic socialist candidates.
And that’s helpful context for looking at the GOP’s fact-free ploy, which has even drawn groans on the right. As conservative writer Matt Lewis wrote for NOTUS:
There’s a huge difference between political movements that want to use democratic means to expand the welfare state and truly authoritarian ideologies that reject liberal democracy altogether.
This distinction matters. A lot.
Trump’s use of the term “communist” is coded to evoke images of the Soviet Union, an evil empire defined by one-party rule, political persecution, collectivism, gulags, famine, and its failure to compete with capitalism. Conflating that with supporting Medicare for All feels like a huge stretch to me.
And while making such charges can surely generate applause at rallies — and possibly even swing a midterm election or two — accusing a politician of being communist will do little to persuade the guy who says, “Yeah, so what?”
What’s especially galling here is that Trump and Republicans have embraced a slew of communistic policies — such as taking government ownership in independent businesses — that critics of various political stripes have condemned as “MAGA Maoism.”
Americans would be wise to remember all of this in the months ahead, as the GOP inevitably ramps up its Red Scare-esque tactics to falsely frame liberals as communists.
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