In a recent AFP op-ed, Yvonne Surette noted that congressmen Ben Cline is labeling Democrats as communists (Why is Ben Cline so fixated on communists? July 28, 2026). That may be a positive sign for his Sixth District opponent, Beth Macy, as Republicans typically resort to this branding when they are worried.
As Surette points out, Cline is just following the lead of his lord and master, Donald Trump, who often calls Democrats communists and Marxists – all in one sentence. That’s because, although the United States has had a long history of opposing communism most Americans don’t know what the words mean.
Here is where things get interesting. There are two components to communism: economic communism and political communism. There was a time, in the 1930s and 1940s when many liberals were infatuated by economic communism. It was the Great Depression, and economic communism seemed like a good way to remedy the economic insecurity and disparity most Americans were experiencing. However, the Russians and later the Chinese communists demonstrated that economic communism was a complete failure (among other things, it resulted in massive famines that killed millions of people), and therefore most liberals rejected it.
Political communism is marked by having a single political party, a conservative agenda, limited human rights, and a strong party leader. Liberals never really liked political communism. On the other hand, while renouncing it, the Republican Party has been and continues to evolve more towards that political model. For example, many Republicans have gerrymandered voting districts, created obstacles to voting, and have committed election fraud to marginalize their Democratic opponents. Their goal is to make the Democratic Party a permanent minority party.
Some Republicans, such as Mitch McConnell, have openly stated that the United States is a republic and not a democracy. Consequently, Republicans have sought to limit personal liberties, such as making homosexuality a crime, making Protestant (not Catholic) Christianity a state religion, and passing laws to limit freedom of speech and assembly.
Like the old Soviet Union, Texas has passed a law that provides a monetary reward for snitching, i.e., for turning in someone who manufactures, distributes, or mails abortion medications to women or who help a woman obtain the pills. And Texas has allowed local ordinances that criminalize transporting a woman out of state for an abortion, essentially limiting freedom of movement.
Communist countries control the media and use the media to feed their citizens false information, i.e., the media is a political propaganda machine. Although we have freedom of the press, Fox News, which boasts the nation’s highest TV news viewership, openly has a far-right stance, which consistently denounces Democrats and praises Republicans. It is one reason why so many Americans have a conservative-slanted perception of current events.
And, of course, the Republican Party, much like communist countries such as China, North Korea, Cuba, and Russia (Putin was a life-long member of the Communist Party and was an officer in the KGB, the Soviet secret service) is based on autocratic leadership and a cult of personality, i.e., Donald Trump.
Communism is quite different than social democracy, which is by definition a democracy, where the emphasis of government involvement is to ensure social justice. Unlike most communist countries, social democracy is not incompatible with capitalism.
Political communism/Marxism is considered a far-left form of governance. Eventually, however, far left and far right forms of government begin to look like and behave like each other. Many of the above characteristics of political communism can also be used to describe fascism. That’s why Russia and Germany were at first allies and then opponents during WWII. Stalin and Hitler were autocratic cult leaders, who controlled their single party legislatures, and who had the same objectives for their countries: take over and enslave their neighboring countries.
So, the next time you hear Donald Trump and his Republican lackeys such as representative Ben Cline label Democrats communists and Marxists consider the irony, as they are really describing themselves.
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