It is beginning to seem like we are in the middle of the Spanish Civil War.
For those who have forgotten, the Spanish Civil War was the great prequel to World War II, in which the combatants were representatives of the communists and the fascists. Stalin's Soviet Union supported the first, Hitler's Germany helped the second.
President Trump and the Republican Party have decided to compete against “communism” in the upcoming midterm elections. In his Fourth of July speech on Saturday, Trump referenced the communists among us nearly a dozen times. “Our warriors did not fight communism on battlefields around the world, only for that threat to rear its ugly head here in the United States,” he said. “We are not going to allow this to happen.”
A few days earlier, the president argued that the communist threat here at home amounts to “the greatest threat to our country, including World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor, 9/11.”
Before we claim that it was the right that started this, we should note that we are years (or even decades) into a long effort to label Republicans, conservatives, and especially Trump as “fascists.” Numerous books and countless opinion articles and magazines have been written in support of this claim. In October 2024, CNN's Anderson Cooper asked then-Vice President Kamala Harris, “Do you think Donald Trump is a fascist?”
Harris responded: “Yes, I do. Yes, I do.”
Of course, the right's habit of calling the left “communist” and the left's habit of calling the right “fascist” didn't start with Trump either, so let's stick to the current uproar.
Democrats and several media outlets have rejected Trump's communist accusation, maintaining that even the most left-wing Democrats in the news (mostly members of the Democratic Socialists of America) are not communists, but simply democratic socialists, of the type popular in Europe and the Nordic countries. “Democratic socialists are willing to be voted out of power,” said historian Michael Kazin. ABC News after last year's elections. “They believe that once you have a democratic socialist society, people will like that society, but if they don't want to maintain it, then they can go back to a more capitalist society.”
Kazin is right about the difference between social democracy and communism. But I don't think that settles the argument as much as many people think.
The DSA website is filled with positive references to Carlos Marx. Within the DSA network there are organizations such as the “Liberation Caucus”, “red star,” he “communist group,” he “Marxist Unity Group“, etc. They do not simply offer positive references to Marx, Mao, Lenin, etc., but affirmatively cite them as authoritative voices. I especially enjoyed the “Common Misconceptions about Mao” section.
If all these people are simply Swedish “social democrats”, why is it impossible to find DSA references to the Swedish founding social democrat Hjalmar Branting, but easy to find references to Marx and Mao?
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has called for embracing “the warmth of collectivism.” Congressional candidate Darializa Ávila Chevalier, who recently won a Democratic primary in New York, has in the past praised numerous communist dictators and lamented that her local bookstore did not carry the complete works of Stalin. She deleted previous social media posts that said this and now insists she is simply a democratic socialist.
Ávila Chevalier might even be telling the truth. But I ask you: if a Republican candidate had documentary evidence of being a dedicated, cultured, doctrinaire Nazi but only repudiated that past to run for office, would you trust his word?
Also: Would the media cover for them by explaining the differences between overt Nazism and milder forms of “democratic fascism.”
It's a stupid question, and we know the answer, because the right has a similar problem. Not all those books and articles about the right's flirtation with fascism are paranoid. Many Republicans have played with their feet, or even had dinner with – confessed hitler fan and occasional Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes. Mark Robinson, the 2024 Republican candidate for governor of North Carolina, once described himself as “ablack nazi.” Vice President JD Vance Has Covered Up for GOP Texting Employees”i love hitler.” The riot of January 6 was certainly fascist.
This is my opinion: everyone who makes concessions to Nazism or Communism should be ashamed of themselves.
But here are more practical tips. If you are a journalist, stop covering on the side. And if you're a fairly normal center-left Democrat or center-right Republican, don't worry so much about the idiots and radicals in the other party and start doing something with yours.
This Spanish Civil War stuff is mostly embarrassing cosplay. Most Americans reject extremes, but if people don't denounce extremism in their own party, they aren't really against extremism.
UNKNOWN: @JonahDispatch
