Historians trace Trump’s anti-communism to McCarthy-era roots
President Trump made the comments at a press conference Wednesday after the NATO summit in Ankara, which was dominated by negotiations over an Iran ceasefire. Before departing the summit, Trump said he wanted “to get the word out because what’s forming is communism.”
Trump called communism “the biggest threat that America has faced since its founding.” He added: “Communism is easy to sell. I would be the greatest communist in history. I’d be right up there with [Vladimir] Lenin.”
The remarks represent an escalation of a rhetorical strategy Trump has employed since the 2024 campaign, when he labeled then-Vice President Kamala Harris “Comrade Kamala” and shared a manipulated image of her speaking under communist flags. At the time, Trump defended the approach, saying “I think we’re hitting a nerve” and that the goal was to “define our opponent as being a communist or a socialist.”
Presidential historian Tevi Troy, who served in the George W. Bush administration, said the anti-communist framing is deeply personal for Trump. “This is in his bones,” Troy said. He noted that Trump grew up during the 1950s, when anti-communism was a bipartisan consensus, and that Trump’s mentor was Roy Cohn, the lawyer who helped Sen. Joe McCarthy hunt communists.
Trump has intensified the rhetoric after primary election victories by candidates aligned with democratic socialism in New York and Colorado. At the Faith & Freedom Coalition conference last month, Trump said Democrats would “close your churches in this country if they go communist” and “kill your people.”
Jennifer Stromer-Galley, who studies political messaging at Syracuse University, said Trump is conflating democratic socialism with communism to mobilize his base. Democratic socialists seek to preserve capitalism while expanding social programs, whereas communism aims to replace capitalism. “Part of what Trump is doing is creating a new boogeyman,” Stromer-Galley said.
The messaging comes as economic concerns — partly driven by the war in Iran — have boosted support for candidates who back a larger social safety net. Trump has sought to reframe that debate in ideological terms.
Raymond Robertson of Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government said the communist label still resonates with older voters but carries little weight with younger Americans who lack Cold War context. “They don’t remember the end of the cold war. That is ancient history,” Robertson said. He also pointed to an inconsistency in Trump’s criticism: his own administration has taken equity stakes in major U.S. companies, including Intel and U.S. Steel, through government investments.
The White House dismissed comparisons between Trump’s policies and communism, calling such arguments “idiotic” and stating that Trump’s agenda focuses on “revitalizing American industry and reshoring manufacturing here at home.”