Dogged by record-low approval numbers and a recent series of public-relations debacles, from his Great American State Fair to the chaos at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, Donald Trump attempted over the July 4th weekend to change the topic.
According to MS NOW’s Zeeshan Aleem, the president is leaning heavily upon invoking “communism” to attack the Democrats, as demonstrated during his speech at Mt. Rushmore last Friday, and he seems unaware it doesn’t have the impact among persuadable voters it may have had decades ago.
Buffeted on all sides, Trump is now doubling down with "communism" to attack Democrats, with Aleem asserting the president is woefully "out of touch."
According to the analyst, during his Mt. Rushmore speech last Friday, Trump mentioned the term "communism" or "communist" 15 times. He invoked it repeatedly again on July 4th. The White House joined the coordinated assault, posting on X: "You can be a communist or you can be a patriot. You cannot be both."
While right-wing influencers and Republicans have amplified the messaging across social media in recent weeks, Aleem suggested "This effort is concerted, desperate and likely doomed."
The problem is obvious to anyone under 50, he wrote. The word "communist" doesn't carry the weight it did during the Cold War or even the early 2000s. Millennials and Gen Z voters — groups Trump desperately needs — were "either not born or not politically conscious" when communism was portrayed as an existential threat to American values.
"Of course, it may very well be the case that most of the midterm electorate remains skeptical that the small democratic socialist bloc represents the future of the Democratic Party," he wrote. "The movement gets a lot of attention, but that’s not the same as power. What voters will know is that Trump is in power and has done nothing for the U.S. economy except make it more comfortable for the ultrarich and more expensive for everyone else. And no appeals to 20th century bogeymans can change that."
