Will the ‘Red Scare’ Be Revived Under Trump?

Hollywood 10 member Dalton Trumbo, the subject of a 2015 movie starring Brian Cranston in the title role, is pictured. Source: The Vintage News

Trump’s angry rhetoric and threats of retribution recall the ‘Hollywood Blacklist’ of the ’40s and ’50s when hundreds lost their livelihoods.

Prologue

In his Thanksgiving Day message to a nation that had just reelected him president, Donald Trump wrote, “Happy Thanksgiving to all including the Radical Left Lunatics who have worked so hard to destroy our Country.”

Of course, it was not the first time Trump had branded his opposition as such. In a 4th of July speech commemorating the military, candidate Trump declared, “We are now in the process of defeating the radical left, the Marxists, the anarchists, the agitators, the looters, and people who have no clue in what they’re doing.”

In a Veterans’ Day speech that drew parallels to Hitler’s oratory, Trump pledged to “root out the Communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of this country.”

We would have to harken back 75 years or so to find similar rhetoric from our political leaders. It was a dark time for our country.

Source: Wikipedia

The Hollywood Blacklist

The Hollywood Blacklist began on November 25, 1947, the day after ten left-wing movie directors and screenwriters (“The Hollywood 10”) were cited for contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions (“Are you now or have you ever been…?”) before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). We continue the narrative with an image that identifies the Hollywood 10:

Source: slideplayer.com

The Blacklist was rooted in anti-Soviet hysteria in the aftermath of World War II. Conservative congressional leaders along with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had long conflated liberalism with communism. Hollywood movies glorifying “the common man” or criticizing corporate greed were branded as vessels of Soviet propaganda.

Meanwhile, the hardships and inequality brought on by the Great Depression, the rise of Hitler, and our wartime alliance with the Soviet Union all played a part in a post-war liberal moment (e.g. Jackie Robinson), albeit momentarily. The Hollywood 10 and other targets of HUAC were for the most part not Communist Party members. And so they were branded as “Communist sympathizers” or “fellow travelers” or being “soft on Communism.” Hundreds lost their livelihoods.

Joe McCarthy

Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) on the right with Trump mentor Roy Cohn. Source: britannica.com

The Blacklist received oxygen in the US Senate when Joe McCarthy, a Republican from Wisconsin, gave speech in Wheeling, West Virginia in 1950, in which he claimed to have a list of 200 known Communists who worked in the State Department.

No such list existed.

From his perch as chairman of the Senate Committee of Government Operations, Sen. McCarthy accused political opponents, government agencies, journalists, left-wing activists, and Jews of being under the influence of Communism. His charges were so reckless that the term “McCarthyism” is synonymous with making baseless and malicious smears.

When he cast his net on the US Army, McCarthy finally met his match. Army counsel Joseph Welch called the Senator’s bluff on national television by famously pleading, “At long last, sir, have you no decency?”

Roy Cohn

Before he mentored Donald Trump, Roy Cohn served as chief counsel on Joe McCarthy’s Senate committee and played a major role in its anti-Communist hearings. Cohn’s tenure with Trump goes back to 1971 when he defended Trump for violating the Fair Housing Act in 39 of his rental properties.

Cohn and Trump attend the opening of Trump Tower. Source: Getty Images

Cohn’s influence on Trump is captured by New York author Sam Roberts:

Roy was a master of situational immorality…He worked a three-dimensional strategy, which was: 1. Never settle, never surrender. 2. Counter-attack, counter-sue immediately. 3. No matter what happens, no matter how deeply into the muck you get, claim victory and never admit defeat.

This was certainly the playbook Trump followed in asserting his Big Lie that he won the 2020 presidential election. Just as McCarthy and Roy Cohn did before him, Trump gaslit America. Trump even succeeded in making the adherence to the Big Lie an article of faith within the Republican Party. Salon: “To doubt Joe McCarthy in the early ’50s was to become an accomplice in the Communist conspiracy, just as anyone who rejects Trump’s Big Lie today is a socialist Antifa liberal.”

Red Baiting

Based on his venomous rumblings on the campaign trail, Trump seems committed to reviving ’50s-style red baiting as a political strategy. It probably made inroads with Hispanics in the 2024 presidential election. Harvard professor Steven Levitsky explains: “For many Americans, Trump’s anti-Communist rhetoric just sounds silly…but for people who are descendants of [Communist regimes in] Cuba or Venezuela, that actually struck a chord.”

For Trump, it’s not about political ideology. I dare say he has none. It’s about anyone who opposes him. After his arraignment in Florida in the classified documents case, Trump said, “If the communists get away with this, it won’t stop with me. They will not hesitate to ramp up the persecutions of Christians, pro-life activists, parents attending school board meetings, and even future Republican candidates.” He might as well have added his old trope, “I am your retribution.”

Russell Vought, leader of Project 2025 and incoming Trump budget chief. Source; Getty Images

Us vs. They/Them

Authoritarians in the last century have consistently relied on a potent “us vs. them” narrative to keep their supporters loyal and the opposition vilified. Communism is a time-tested boogeyman: Both Hitler and Mussolini stood united in their opposition to Communism.

When Trump fantasizes about a Communist threat, he is signaling what The Guardian‘s Richard Seymour calls “a single, treasonous, diabolical enemy…a demonic plot.” The point is to thoroughly degrade your opponent without regard for truth or fair play. Never mind that there is not a single Democratic politician in America who advocates anything resembling Communism.

Whether Trump knows the difference between liberalism and Communism is beside the point. He seems to be painting the whole swath of Democrats, progressives, and allied groups with a red paintbrush. There is a new McCarthyism in America and Donald Trump and his cronies are its perpetrators.