“We are witnessing a new and dangerous red-green alliance: communists and Islamists coming together and sweeping over the Democrat Party.” This warning from Sen. Ted Cruz, on night two of the Republican midterm convention, crystallized an ugly theme of the gathering. Throughout, Republicans described the Democratic Party as being overtaken by socialists and communists. And when they needed faces for that supposed takeover, they kept returning to three Muslim politicians: Zohran Mamdani, Ilhan Omar and Abdul El-Sayed.
The trio hail from different states, and hold or seek different offices. They do not even share the same ideology. But for Republicans, those facts do not matter. Nor was it an accident that speakers repeatedly mentioned “socialist” alongside rhetoric about Islam, Sharia law, 9/11 and national loyalty, augmenting an ostensibly economic attack with a darker message about who is foreign, radical, and dangerous.
The broader Democratic field this midterms cycle complicates the GOP convention’s description of a party being swept by socialists.
The first night supplied the clearest preview. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer told the audience that the election was a choice between “common sense” and communism. “These people aren’t even socialists,” he said. “They’re communists and they’re anarchists and they hate our country.” His examples included “Mamdani the Commie,” Ilhan Omar, whom he called an “America hater,” and Abdul El-Sayed, whom he called an “evil man” Emmer finished the sequence by telling people who do not love America to “get the hell out.”
The majority whip did not focus on Sen. Bernie Sanders or Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, arguable the two most prominent democratic socialists in the country. Instead, he targeted Muslim politicians. Other speakers covered similar ground. President Trump attacked El-Sayed during his first-night address while arguing that Democrats had moved beyond socialism into communism. Rep. Lisa McClain, chair of the House Republican Conference, told the audience that “Democrats are running a dangerous radical socialist named Abdul El-Sayed,” prompting boos from the crowd.
Tellingly, the three Muslim politicians don’t even all subscribe to socialism.
Mamdani is a democratic socialist. But though Ilhan Omar is a member of the left “squad” in the House, she has not publicly claimed to be a socialist or sought the endorsement of her local DSA chapter. And El-Sayed has been clear: “I’m not a socialist…I’m just a capitalist who understands how capitalism works.” He argued that monopoly, rather than government regulation, was capitalism’s greatest threat. That outright, on-camera statement did not stop him from becoming one of the convention’s recurring examples of the socialist threat.
The broader Democratic field this midterms cycle complicates the GOP convention’s description of a party being swept by socialists. The Cook Political Report examined Democratic primaries in Republican-held House districts that Democrats could realistically flip. Cook found that center-left candidates – not far left ones – had won or were positioned to win in most of them, including 14 of the 22 contests already decided.
Speakers repeatedly moved from socialism to Sharia law, from communism to Islam, and from economic policy to 9/11 and whether Muslim politicians love America.
Perhaps Republicans are starting to realize their socialism smears are ringing hollow and reaching for something more sinister.
Cruz made that effort rather blatantly Thursday night, weaving seamlessly between attacks on socialism and Islam, “When Mamdani says he wants to ‘seize the means of production,’ he means it.” In the next breath, he attacked Abdul El-Sayed by invoking “Sharia law.”After his “red-green alliance” remark, he said communists and Islamists were united because “they share the same enemies,” listing Christians, Jews, capitalism, the Constitution and America. He then invoked the Oct. 7 attacks and Sept. 11, and later asked whether anyone watching the latter could have imagined “Comrade Mamdani” becoming mayor of New York. He followed that with a declaration that “Sharia law has no place in America.”
There is a basic distinction here that is intentionally being blurred. Socialism is an economic and political ideology. Islam is a religion practiced by Americans across the ideological spectrum and 2 billion people across the world. A Muslim politician can be a socialist, a capitalist or anything in between.
That is why El-Sayed is especially useful for understanding what happened in Dallas. If “socialist” were functioning only as an ideological description, a politician who explicitly identifies as a capitalist would make for an awkward example. But the convention was not simply about lowering tax rates or stopping government-owned enterprises. Speakers repeatedly moved from socialism to Sharia law, from communism to Islam, and from economic policy to 9/11 and whether Muslim politicians love America.
“Socialist” provides a familiar political label, one Republicans have used against Democrats for decades. But when the same label is attached to Muslim politicians regardless of whether they are actually socialists, and then surrounded by warnings about Sharia, terrorism, and national loyalty, it starts doing cultural work that has little to do with economics. The result is a campaign language in which “socialist” can function as both a policy attack and a dog-whistle. And Republicans are eager to blow that whistle for years to come.
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