Letter to the editor: Red herring

First published in the Brunswick Beacon, 07.16.26

In 1950, Republican senator Joe McCarthy gained power by falsely claiming the government was full of communists. McCarthy’s Red Scare left some 10,000 law-abiding Americans blacklisted, including actor Orson Welles, playwright Arthur Miller and composer Aaron Copland. “McCarthyism” became a synonym for unsubstantiated smears.

McCarthy was censured by the Senate. He spent his last years in disgrace and died of alcoholism at age 48.

Trump’s overall approval rating is 30% — his lowest ever. Democrats are favored to win the House of Representatives in November. Desperate for a distraction, Trump decided a new Red Scare would be the perfect red herring.

Without a shred of evidence, Trump called communism “the greatest threat to our country” and smeared Democrats as “hardcore, godless communists.” If Trump believed that, he wouldn’t treat actual, card-carrying communists as long-lost lovers, and communism itself as a joke.

We lost 58,220 Americans trying to bring democracy to Vietnam. Trump called communist Vietnam “one of the great miracles of the world.”

We lost 36,574 Americans fighting communist China and North Korea in the Korean War. Trump called China’s Xi Jinping a “great man.” At their May 2026 Summit, Trump gushed, “It’s an honor to be your friend.”

Trump is even more fond of North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, who he called a “great leader,” adding, “We fell in love. No, really. He wrote me beautiful letters. We fell in love.”

Karl Marx, the father of communism, said, “History repeats itself: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.”

Nothing is more farcical than being condemned as a communist by the man who praises Vietnamese communism, is honored to be Xi’s friend, and boasts of his love affair with Kim Jong Un.

After the NATO summit, Trump joked: “I would be the greatest communist in history. I’d be right up there with Lenin.” But no one who seriously believed communism is “the greatest threat to our country” in 2026 would treat it like a joke.

Arthur Hill 

Southport