Ticket 2 Ride

“Communism is a mortal threat to American liberty. It is the greatest threat to our country, including World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor or even 9/11.” – Donald J. Trump 7/3/2026

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There’s a Commie around every corner. Public school teachers want to turn our kids into transgender commies. Immigrants from failed nations are wanting to rape and murder Mr. and Mrs. America. The red menace is back.

Bunk. This ridiculous rhetoric is designed to scare Americans into voting hardline Republican in the upcoming elections. It’s all about some imaginary threat that communists are taking control of America from the inside.

The GOP strategy is that only Republicans, stylized as AI superheroes in social media, can protect the American family from threats to take away guns, restrict religious practices, invoke Sharia law, and on and on.

The real threats to Republican rule is not communism, rather the election of leaders who will help Americans to pay less for healthcare, expanded coverage for more vulnerable Americans, properly resourcing education, ensure affordable daycare for working families, restore cancer research f and decisions based on scientific fact, protection from fraudulent consumer practices and predatory lenders, increase the supply of affordable housing, etc. – the kinds of everyday struggles that burden working families.

Oh no, we can’t have that. America will not turn to socialism! Trump and his people point to New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Darializa Avila Chevalier, who upset a Democratic New York City congressman last month in a primary election, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez among others who push progressive ideas – and are suddenly the second coming of Mao, Lenin, Marx and other communist leaders.

This is the very real problem of an uneducated electorate, falsehoods and fear pushed by one-sided and dangerous personalities who gain from gerrymandering, dark money, restricting election partisanship and electing candidates who dismantle the very rights that provide for dissent and free elections. All in the name of fighting communists. The only tool these fools bring to the party is hate. The way to start a fight is to identify the enemy. You’re better than them. They are the problem. Play the victim.

The wealthy do not care about the growing gap between themselves and everyone else. The word “communism” is thrown out there because it smacks of revolution, taking wealth away and redistributing it to the peasants. We are hardwired for capitalism, even the kind where the President and Congress supplement their paychecks with wealth from insider trading and dark money, where billionaires receive tax breaks, and consumer and safety regulations are relaxed, health inspections are reduced, and where “greed is good” is celebrated in the assemblies of the new robber barons.

Evoking past world wars and 9/11 at the same time as trumpeting the dangers of communism is totally misleading. Do these far-right strategists know anything about history? Or maybe they are simply exploiting the ignorance of segments of this society that will not question or stand up to blatantly false information. Welcome to the age of bumper sticker intellectuals.

World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor and 9/11. None of these events were about communism. In fact, America was allied with Russia and China against Germany-Italy-Japan in World War II. China was experiencing its own civil war, as well as a war with Japan. Germany, Italy and Japan were not led by communists, rather they each had versions of authoritarian governments and were very anti-communist. If you remember from your modern European history class, Hitler rounded up communists early in his stranglehold of dissent. Mussolini’s National Fascist Party eliminated all other political parties. Japan had an emperor, but Japan was ruled by a military government focused on Japanese Nationalism and colonialism. Communists were purged and arrested.

The attacks on 9/11 had nothing to do with communism or a communist dogma. The Islamic extremist group Al-Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden, claimed responsibility for the 9/11 attacks. At the time, Al-Qaeda was being harbored by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, who had fought the Soviet invasion. While both of these groups possess radical anti-American ideology, neither of these groups had communist ideology.

What we should fear are governments and movements who stand for a radicalized brand of nationalism. Feeling pride and allegiance to a country or group is one thing, but unbridled desire for dominance over others, the use of enemies or ethnic fears, seeking cultural and genetic homogeneity, destroying democratic institutions and restricting freedoms, retribution on enemies, censorship of history, and repression of political thought and religious expression are our real enemies.

We should be very concerned about organized groups that march through our streets spreading hate and aggression.

Beware when those in power try to reshuffle reality and manufacture a new enemy to fear. You are being manipulated and someone is stealing your wallet while you look at the shiny object.

Communism failed. The Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Cuba and North Korea. What about China? Good question. I’m no expert on China, but it’s true the Chinese Communist Party is the only political party and the government functions as a centralized authoritarian political structure. The economy however, is a blend of governmental and capitalist forces, far from the communist model. China has modernized and adapted. “State-owned enterprises are an organic component of China’s political and economic governance, although their contribution to the national output has shrunk to 40%,” according to the non-profit World Economic Forum. Foreign investment and market-based economic reforms have fueled China’s growth.

The world is a complicated place, and ignorance only exacerbates the divides and philosophical distortion. While staring at that shiny object called communism or socialism or anti-fascism or some other words designed to evoke emotion rather than thoughtful discourse, the real steal is going on. The theft of freedom.