Confirmed: Trump is a Commie!

To borrow a phrase Trump likes to use because he has no evidence to back up his statements, “some people are saying” he’s a commie. In Trump’s case, some people are indeed saying that.

Miles Taylor, for example, published an article in Defiance arguing that Trump “is a communist, or at least as close to the rulers of past communist regimes as anyone we’ve ever seen hold power in America.” Taylor is a former Republican official who served in Trump’s first administration as chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security under Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in 2019. John Lippitt, in a letter to the editor of The Reading Post, argues cogently, citing evidence, that “it is quite clear that Trump is the real communist in American politics.” In a longer essay, Lippitt calls Trump’s rearrangement of the government “oligarchic communism.” Lippitt is an American public-policy analyst, former university professor, and progressive political activist who writes extensively about economic inequality, corporate power, democracy, and government policy. RKSL (an unidentified political essayist whom I suspect is the popular historian Timothy Snyder) also published an article in The Frontline explicitly titled Trump is a Communist: The Red-Brown Convergence. The author makes an important point: calling Trump either fascist or communist can describe overlapping authoritarian practices, even though the two ideologies are historically distinct. During an interview with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, former Vice President Kamala Harris said, “We used to compare the strength of our democracy to communist dictators. That’s what we’re dealing with right now, Donald Trump.” Richard Stengel, a former undersecretary of state in the Obama administration, wrote in a BlueSky post that “Trump’s strong-arming Intel into government equity is something Mao and Stalin would be proud of” and noted that government ownership of the means of production is associated with Marxism. There are more examples.

Of course, Trump knows nothing about the theoretical principles of Marxism and has no conceptual understanding of other historical ideologies because he’s incurious, doesn’t read, and is an ignoramus. But his actions stem from the overlapping authoritarian practices that RKSL mentions, and he manifests them instinctively in his relentless pursuit of power and the opportunity for corrupt enrichment it offers. So we could call him a fascist or a communist. The latter is more apt for reasons cited by the authors and others.

These reasons fall into several categories, and in the aggregate, they confirm that Trump is a commie. I prefer this pejorative because “communist” does not capture the contemptible essence of his actions as a whole, which Snyder (identifying himself) characterizes on Substack as “sado-populism.” 

I’ll get to the categories, but first note that the opening sentence of Marx and Engels’ Communist Manifesto, “A specter is haunting Europe—the specter of communism,” has never ceased to apply if we substitute “the United States” for “Europe.” If one were to believe the wild accusations made during the First Red Scare (1919–1920), which followed the Russian Revolution and culminated in the mass arrests and deportations of the Palmer Raids, and the Second Red Scare (1947–1957), when Senator Joseph McCarthy, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), and federal loyalty investigations fueled widespread paranoia about communist infiltration, the United States was positively teeming with communists hiding in every corner of government and society. McCarthy’s influence collapsed only after the televised U.S. Army–McCarthy hearings in 1954, when McCarthy attacked a young lawyer, Fred Fisher, for his past membership in a lawyers’ organization alleged to have communist ties. Joseph N. Welch, chief counsel for the Army, from the same firm as the young lawyer, famously asked McCarthy: “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?” 

That nationally televised confrontation became a defining moment in McCarthy’s loss of public credibility and political influence, but the word “communist” acquired connotations that distort the ideology and became simply an epithet Republicans are prone to hurl at Democrats to besmirch them and scare voters. The question, “Have you no decency, sir?” should be asked of Trump and other Republicans every day as they fling the epithet at Democrats on the ballot in November 2026. Reuters reported in July that Trump invoked communism 81 times in two weeks as his advisers tested it as a midterm-election message. Reuters and the Associated Press found experts rejecting his frequent and inaccurate characterization of mainstream Democrats as communists. And of course, Trump and other Republicans make no distinction among communists, socialists, democratic socialists, or social democrats. Focus group findings, however, indicate that “communism” can be more potent than “socialism” in some races, while “socialism” may have broader appeal in paid ads and district-level messaging. “Republicans see the message resonating in particular with Hispanic voters in Florida –– where anti-socialist appeals have long found traction with voters whose families fled leftist governments in Latin America –– and Texas.”

Whether to make the accusation is therefore a matter of election messaging and baseless fearmongering, nothing more. Trump has effectively detached communism from Marxism. Under his usage, one need not advocate common ownership of the means of production to be a communist. Democrats who support conventional welfare-state programs can be “communists.” Political opponents can be “communists.” Government economic intervention can be “communism.” FDR’s New Deal would be communism. These structures in the United States would be communist or socialist: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Veterans Health Administration, public schools, state universities, the Postal Service, publicly owned utilities, municipal electric systems, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Bonneville Power Administration, Amtrak, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve System, federal agricultural subsidies, public housing, federal housing assistance, progressive income taxation, federal emergency and disaster assistance, national parks, federal public lands, the United States military, and federal government ownership stakes in private corporations.

If one were as unethical as Trump and his Republican minions, it would only be fair, then, for Democrats to call Trump a communist or a fascist and endlessly repeat the allegation without evidence, depending on how different messages resonate with focus groups. But in this case, there is evidence, and this is where I discuss the categories of proof that Trump is a commie.

First, Trump treats government interference in markets as evidence of socialism or communism when Democrats propose it. Yet, as the Peterson Institute reports, direct federal involvement in private enterprise increased dramatically during the Trump administration, including ownership stakes in numerous corporations and control over key business decisions.

In August 2025, the administration acquired a 9.9% equity stake in Intel, valued at approximately $8.9 billion, making the federal government a substantial shareholder in one of America’s leading semiconductor manufacturers. Other major investments include MP Materials, a major rare-earth mineral producer; Lithium Americas and its Thacker Pass mining joint venture; Trilogy Metals; USA Rare Earth; Vulcan Elements; ReElement Technologies; Korea Zinc; and Japan’s Nippon Steel.

Overall, these transactions mark a remarkable departure from the old American model of private enterprise subject to government regulation. The administration has become not only a regulator or subsidizer of selected industries but also an owner, investor, financial guarantor, and participant in corporate decision-making.

These developments constitute a form of state capitalism adjacent to communist models that operate under a centralized economy. In The Communist Manifesto, Marx summarized the defining feature of communism as “the abolition of bourgeois property” (meaning private ownership of the means of production, such as factories, land, and machinery). Trump would put us on track toward that goal through his interventions in private business, supplemented by his love of tariffs. Private companies may remain private, but the government acts like the Republican boogeyman, determining winners and losers according to political whims. The government intervenes in selected corporations; executives must kowtow to presidential exigencies, and economic policy reflects the head of state’s personal goal. In addition, Trump manipulates the stock market by strategically timing tariff announcements and cancellations.

Second, we must also consider Trump’s inexplicable adoration of, and even subservience to, the three most prominent communist leaders in the world: Vladimir Putin of Russia, Xi Jinping of China, and Kim Jong Un of North Korea. 

We know Russia is not officially a communist country, and Putin doesn’t call himself a communist anymore (of course, what would you expect a communist to say?). Putin, however, was a KGB officer under the Soviet regime, considers the collapse of the Soviet Union a historic catastrophe, and seeks to restore Russia to its former glory, most notably through the invasion of Ukraine. The current regime is the Soviet system’s authoritarian residue, stripped of its Marxist economics. Russia also maintains close strategic relationships with China, ruled by the Chinese Communist Party, and with North Korea, as well as Iran. 

China and North Korea have taken different economic and ideological paths, yet both are ruled by strong-arm leaders descended from Marxist-Leninist communist movements. Iran is plainly not communist; it is an Islamic republic but also a longtime U.S. adversary allied with communist regimes. Those facts can legitimately inform whether Trump is a communist.

Trump’s adoration and subservience to communist authoritarian leaders seem inexplicable at first glance. Perhaps they stem only from his longing for the nearly absolute power those leaders enjoy (a trait often associated with communism). Perhaps he’s just a useful idiot or a submissive, weak ‘leader.” Perhaps it’s all of the above—and more. The most cogent explanation for his behavior is that he’s at least partly a commie at heart. 

The evidence concerning Xi is particularly persuasive. Trump repeatedly expresses personal admiration for Xi’s authoritarian power, has called him “very smart,” and describes him as one of the world’s greatest leaders (Axios). During his May 2026 visit to Beijing, Trump said of Xi: “He’s a man I respect greatly. Become, really, a friend.” He emphasized that they had known each other for nearly twelve years and described their relationship as “very strong” (The American Presidency Project). He also half-joked that Xi would become president for life: “you’re president for life, and therefore, you’re King” (CNN). That creates a baffling juxtaposition with Trump’s current rhetoric: he campaigns against American “communists” while courting Xi, the leader of the world’s most powerful communist state.

When it comes to Kim Jong Un, the evidence is comically explicit. The Independent reported that at a campaign rally in West Virginia in September 2018, he said: “I was really being tough, and so was he. And we would go back and forth. And then we fell in love, OK? No, really. He wrote me beautiful letters, and they’re great letters. We fell in love.” Trump later claimed his characterization of the correspondence as “love letters” was sarcastic, but that doesn’t cancel the original statements or the repeated descriptions of his relationship with Kim as if they were indeed lovers. His adoration of Kim is so pronounced that “coming out of the closet” as a commie could take on scandalous connotations, at least in terms of bicuriosity (which could also help explain his toxic, faux masculinity as a defense mechanism). And Kim isn’t merely some communist authoritarian but the hereditary dictator of one of the world’s few remaining states descended directly from the Stalinist model.

Putin isn’t far behind in the pantheon of Trump’s idols. As former Berkeley chancellor and Soviet specialist George Breslauer puts it, Putin isn’t a communist, but he retained from his Soviet career a “veneration of state authority” (Berkeley News). Trump has praised Putin’s “intelligence, strength and leadership” for years. During the 2016 campaign, he contrasted Putin favorably with Barack Obama, saying Putin had “very strong control over a country” and was “far more” of a leader than Obama. At Helsinki in 2018, Trump disgraced himself by publicly denying Russian election interference despite the conclusions of his own intelligence agencies (The Washington Post), because “Putin had told him so.” Again, Trump’s fawning over Putin suggests submissiveness that sometimes feels sexual and makes him want to compensate for his inferiority by cruelly abusing the powerless, immigrants, the disabled, the poor, women, and Blacks.

Third, consider what he has done to literally destroy the country, from damaging the environment in numerous ways to weakening American institutions, scientific capacity, public health protections, and natural resources through executive orders, regulatory changes, and agency decisions. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, since the start of his second term, Trump has taken or proposed at least 560 actions that directly threaten the environment, climate, and human health at both the macro and local levels. This year, for example, one Executive Order directed the U.S. Forest Service and the Department of the Interior to ramp up timber production and bypass standard environmental reviews or Endangered Species Act protections across hundreds of millions of acres of federal lands. Federal courts previously struck down rollbacks of protections for old-growth trees in Oregon and Washington (the “Eastside Screens” rule) and a plan to open parts of the Tongass National Forest in Alaska to massive timber harvesting. On the local scale, a recent example of his destructive impulses occurred at the Trump National Golf Club in Virginia. Loudoun County officials cited and fined the club in 2019 for illegally cutting down trees along the Potomac River floodplain without required permits; then, this month, Trump defied a court order to stop tree-cutting at the East Potomac Golf Course, a historic site that has been part of his plans to remake the city, after 400 very old trees had been felled. Other examples of smaller-scale or symbolic insults to the nation include the demolition of the White House’s East Wing and his plans to demolish the Kennedy Center.

Fourth, Trump’s efforts to weaken national defense are well known. He has fractured NATO and other alliances created in substantial part to contain communist powers. He has sown distrust of the United States by floating the possibility of military action or U.S. expansion into Greenland, a self-governing Danish territory; imposing irrational tariffs on Canada, again leaving the possibility of military action on the table; and using rhetoric about the “control or expansion” of U.S. influence over its northern neighbor. He recently targeted Oman, a long-standing U.S. diplomatic partner, hostage mediator, and military ally whose ports host the U.S. Navy, threatening to “blow them up” if Oman failed to align with U.S. demands regarding shipping lanes. He has also antagonized close security partners such as Colombia, Mexico, and Panama, explicitly warning or threatening them with potential U.S. military intervention over regional viability, oil flows, and maritime transit. South Korea has faced threats of reduced U.S. military support and a scaling back of vital joint military exercises, driven by what the administration deemed insufficient assistance during the war with Iran. In sum, he is hell-bent on turning friends into enemies.

Fifth, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has gutted the country’s military under Trump’s watch. He has fired numerous qualified, experienced generals, admirals, and junior officers with impeccable reputations and derailed others’ promotions, simply because he suspected they were “woke”—and often because they are Black, women, or transgender. Notable examples include General Charles Q. Brown Jr., Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was dismissed in February 2025. Brown, a Black four-star Air Force general and former Air Force chief of staff, had extensive operational and command experience, but Hegseth publicly questioned whether Brown attained his position because of merit or race. Hegseth also fired Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to hold the Navy’s top uniformed job. In neither case was the reason for the removal explained. Similarly, Hegseth removed General Randy George, Army Chief of Staff, in April 2026, reportedly for refusing to obey Hegseth’s instruction to remove four officers, two Black men and two women, from a list of prospective promotions. Hegseth’s actions have disrupted military leadership and raised concerns about readiness and a Pentagon in disarray.

Many more categories of large and small actions that tend to destroy democracy and diminish American power, soft and hard, exist; several volumes of hardcover books would be needed to discuss them all. Sharing secrets with Russian officials. Blaming Ukraine for the Russian invasion. Freeing Russia to supply as much as five million metric tons of diesel to American and international markets, allowing Russia to continue helping Iran, which is at war with the United States, with our money. Dismissing reports that Russia and China are assisting Iran in its war with the United States, or that Russia interfered with American elections. Suggesting that Iran should destroy Los Angeles and San Diego. Enabling RFK Jr. to kill tens of thousands of Americans with his demented, uninformed views on medicine, including anti-vaxxing. Ending research grants, on pretextual grounds, to major universities that drive technological, medical, and general scientific advances for the nation, and abusing these institutions with onerous fines and settlements following blackmail campaigns. Persistently attacking the media as “the enemy of the people” and violating their First Amendment rights. Bullying and forcing nine prominent law firms to collectively pledge nearly $1 billion in free legal services for causes acceptable to the White House and punishing lawyers for representing clients or advancing legal positions he opposes––a threat to the independence of the legal profession and the right to counsel. 

All of this is music to Putin, Xi, and Kim’s ears and is exactly what a commie president of the United States would do and say. There’s no other satisfactory explanation.