Former president targets Democratic Party shift, labelling left-wing candidates as communists
Washington, DC: If Donald Trump was anxious about returning to the Washington Hilton hotel, where he was allegedly the target of an assassination attempt two months ago, he didn’t show it.
Speaking to the Faith and Freedom Coalition in the same ballroom as the ill-fated White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, Trump did not dwell on the incident beyond a brief opening statement.
“I remember this place,” he said. “I hope we have a slightly more pleasant experience.”
Instead, Trump wanted to talk about the results of last week’s Democratic primary elections in New York. And what he said was a preview of the next four months in US politics leading up to the midterm elections in November.
Republicans will use the leftward shift among Democratic voters in major liberal cities to portray the party as being taken over by “communist” spies who hate America and want to destroy its foundations.
“They are communists, not social democrats,” Trump said about the left-wing candidates who won the primaries in New York with the support of Mayor Zohran Mamdani. “They want to completely destroy the traditional American way of life.”
He said it was easy to be a communist and that he would make a great communist because all you had to do was promise free stuff. “The problem is that after two or three years the country has become a disaster area. The country is failing.”
Trump spoke in sweeping, existential terms. He said communism was spreading in the Democratic Party “like an uncontrollable form of cancer.” “This doesn’t stop in New York.” Establishment Democrats were neither tough nor smart enough to “fight the plague that was brewing.”
And he linked this alleged threat to numerous attempts – proven and alleged – on his own life, claiming that the assassination of the communists’ opponents was “a very important element of their ideology.”
“Assassination is a big deal for them. They are animals,” Trump said. “This is the biggest threat to our country since its founding.”
The president wasn’t the only speaker at the Faith and Liberty summit focusing on the results of last week’s primaries in New York.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, whose job for the next four months is to defend the Republican majority in that chamber, read portions of the Democratic Socialists of America platform, each of which was booed by the conservative crowd.
“America’s foundations are under fierce and unprecedented attack,” Johnson told the audience.
“Some of the most radical people who have ever run for office are on the ballot. They are openly running for Congress as Marxist communists… Now on our own shores, in our own homeland.”
In many ways, Trump and Republicans are excited about the campaign ahead. Polls for months have shown them heading for a significant defeat, at least in the House of Representatives. The success of some Democratic Socialists and progressive Democrats allowed them to strengthen the campaign where they would always face a literal “redheads under the beds” scare.
And they are united in their message. On Friday, prominent Republican strategist and commentator Scott Jennings titled his podcast/vlog: “The whole thing is communist through and through.”
He pointed out the video by Aber Kawas, another member of the Democratic Socialists of America. The daughter of Palestinian refugees is running for the New York state senate and won her primary on Tuesday.
In the video, Kawas said that the statement “We need to apologize for the terrorist attack carried out by a few people, but there is no apology or compensation for genocide or slavery” is reprehensible. He was referring to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and elsewhere.
Jennings said in his vlog that the Democratic Party has been overrun by anti-American, anti-capitalist radicals.
“The barbarians are not at the gates, they are already inside. They are here to destroy the American system and tear your way of life away from you.”
A recent Marquette Law School poll found that most voters have a negative view of the Democratic Socialists of America: 48 percent view them unfavorably, while 21 percent view them favorably and 31 percent say they don’t listen enough.
However, Democratic socialist Bernie Sanders has been a popular name for many years, and there are still many Democrats who believe he would have defeated Trump in 2016 if the party had nominated him instead of Hillary Clinton.
But Republicans are clearly deciding on their midterm strategy. Expect to hear a lot more of these over the next four months.
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Michael Koziol is the North America correspondent for The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former Sydney editor, Sun-Herald deputy editor and a federal political correspondent in Canberra.Connect with: X or email.
