President Donald Trump on Friday seized on the electoral success of a number of democratic socialist candidates to ramp up his attacks on the Democratic Party, claiming it was being taken over by “godless Communists” who pose an existential risk to the nation.
The heated rhetoric marked the most recent bid by Trump to painting Democrats as political extremists ahead of November’s midterms — although portrayals of even the social gathering’s most liberal candidates as “communists” are removed from actuality.
“These are hard core, godless Communists,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social put up earlier on Friday, an accusation he repeated throughout remarks to a gathering of social conservatives. “This is the Greatest Threat to our Country since its Founding 250 years ago!”
The president’s stepped up bid to label Democrats as communists follows New York’s Democratic main earlier this week, which noticed voters in three deep blue districts select self-identified democratic socialists as their candidates for Congress.
Those main wins got here on the heels of New York’s election of one other democratic socialist, Zohran Mamdani, for mayor. Democrats may ship nonetheless extra to Congress by the point November’s races are set, with hopefuls on the poll in a number of states throughout the nation.
It’s a motion that seems set to push the Democratic Party additional to the left. Yet the tenets of socialism — a lot much less democratic socialism — are nonetheless far faraway from the communist ideology that Trump has loudly, and inaccurately, portrayed as a rising risk.
The democratic socialists rising throughout the Democratic Party are advocating for main coverage adjustments throughout the US’ already established capitalist system, mainly via a big bolstering of the social security internet. That consists of directing larger public funding towards guaranteeing well being look after all residents, offering much more in housing help and relying on the federal government to a a lot larger diploma to carry peoples’ high quality of life.
The foremost tradeoff for these advantages is increased taxes, particularly on the rich, which democratic socialists contend is important to make sure a extra balanced and equal society.
That’s a view that has raised the ire of Republicans, and even factions throughout the Democratic Party, who’re against such change — or imagine that it’s extra prudent to make change incrementally.
Yet even that aggressive platform is much from what would sometimes be outlined as communism, which envisions a government-less, class-less society the place assets are distributed evenly regardless of how onerous or properly any people work. Implementing such an ideology would first require successfully dismantling capitalism — a step that no main Democrats see as preferable or possible.
Those clear variations between democratic socialism and communism aren’t more likely to deter Trump, whose social gathering faces an uphill battle in retaining full management of Congress. On Friday, talking on the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s 2026 Policy Conference, he warned that Democrats’ “communist” insurance policies would result in societal collapse — and probably even violence.
“I’m sorry to say, but assassination is a big deal for them,” he stated, talking on the identical Washington, DC, lodge the place earlier this 12 months a gunman who authorities say was attempting to kill him was subdued. “They’re animals in many cases.”
The president additionally forged the battle in opposition to communism in non secular phrases, referencing violence against Christians in Nigeria and warning of dire penalties domestically.
“They will close your churches in this country. They go communist, and they’re trying to. They will kill your people, and that’s what they’re about. They want to end religion,” he stated.
It was a pointy distinction in comparison with his analysis simply days earlier of the chief of an precise communist nation: China’s Xi Jinping.
“He’s a very smart man,” Trump advised Axios in an interview revealed final week. “You don’t get to those levels where you are running a country, even if it was a small country, you have something special.”