Trump relying on 1960s trope to spark fear of institutions that threaten him: analysis

Faced with the first criminal indictments brought against a former president in American history, Politico reported on Thursday, Donald Trump has fallen back on a tactic employed with abandon by conservative politicians during the Cold War: red-baiting.

"More than three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, Donald Trump seems determined to resurrect red baiting as a political tactic. Calling his political opponents communists has become a regular feature of Trump’s attacks on the Biden administration, the Democratic Party, and the likes of George Soros," wrote Amherst College political science professor Austin Sarat. "Using this tactic, Trump hopes that a single word can discredit their political views. He wants his followers to fear what the people and institutions he calls communist will do to those who don’t share their world view — including to the former president himself."

Fearmongering that any political opponent was a communist or in league with communists was a useful tool in the era when everyone faced the constant anxiety of nuclear war with the Soviets that could come at any moment — and Trump is hoping it will serve him now.

The strategy has three key purposes behind hit, Sarat argued.

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"First, it is designed to appeal to older voters who remember the days when the phrase 'Better Dead Than Red' signaled solidarity among white people in this country against a common enemy. Polls show that only 3 percent of people in their 70s and older have a favorable view of communism as opposed to 28 percent among Gen Z," wrote Sarat. "Second, it stirs up fears of China, today’s most prominent and powerful communist nation. Finally, this language has special meaning in South Florida, where the former president is under federal indictment. It’s no accident that Trump reacted to his arraignment in the classified documents case on June 13 by waving the bloody flag of communism and describing the threat it allegedly poses — this region of the country in particular is home to the descendants of refugees from communist and leftist regimes in the Caribbean and Central and South America, and some of them may be part of his jury pool, not simply the electorate."

The strategy of labeling political opponents as communists was a common tactic not just in the U.S., Sarat noted, but in fascist regimes.

"By conjuring such demonic forces, Trump amplifies his anti-democratic claim that, as he put it in his post-indictment speech, 'I am the only one that can save this nation,'" Sarat concluded