The U.S. president is inventing fictional monsters to fight as he tries to prevent massive losses in the midterms.
President Donald Trump flying over Washington, D.C. aboard Marine One last month. (White House /Daniel Torok)
By Caitlin Johnstone
Caitlin’s Newsletter
Listen to Tim Foley read this article.
As self-styled “democratic socialists” make some advancements in blue states, Republicans have launched a renewed fearmongering campaign about the urgent threat of “communism” — an ideology with no meaningful political existence in the United States.
At a speech on Wednesday, President Donald Trump said that “communism is the greatest threat to our country” and would lead to “the ultimate annihilation of civilization.” This is just the latest rhetoric from the president as he tries to drum up fear about progressive Democrats to prevent massive losses in the midterms.
Democratic socialist politicians are still a small minority in U.S, politics, and conflating them with communists is absurd. Communism seeks the complete dismantling of capitalism and the imperialist world order it holds in place at gunpoint, while Western “democratic socialists” typically just seek a gentler, more photogenic capitalist empire where things like healthcare and public transportation are funded by taxes.
The West in general and the U.S. in particular have spent generations stomping out communism, and, at least within the confines of the Western world, they have been remarkably successful at it.
In 2026 the United States is so very, very, very, very, VERY far from communism that viewing it as a threat is just a sign of weak-minded cowardice and jumping-at-shadows paranoia. It’s kind of like reading about a brush fire thousands of kilometers away and worrying that it’s going to burn its way across the world to show up on your doorstep.
Up Close: Mamdani marks big political victory in New York City primaries https://t.co/Wm5uvDtrDP pic.twitter.com/4bysgXAwpK
— Eyewitness News (@ABC7NY) June 29, 2026
But I suppose if I were in Trump’s position I might be fearmongering about communism, too. He just lost the war in Iran, his support for Israel is losing ground with voters, people are critical of his astonishing levels of corruption and his known Jeffrey Epstein associations, and it’s not like he disagrees with Democrats on enough issues to take a real position of substance. What else does he have in his arsenal besides vapid fear-mongering about an imaginary boogie man?
President Trump: “T.R. was also a staunch and ferocious opponent of a thing called Communism… He said, ‘The doctrines of Communistic Socialism, if consistently followed, mean the ultimate annihilation of civilization.’ As we’re seeing now, Communism is the Greatest Threat to… pic.twitter.com/sZbiNnURgQ
— One America News (@OANN) July 1, 2026
The leader of the most murderous and tyrannical power structure on earth can’t take a stand against the real problems in our world, because the power structure is the source of those problems. So instead he has to invent fictional monsters to fight.
Meanwhile…
—U.S. House lawmakers have blocked a congressional debate to remove Section 219 (formerly Section 224) from the national defense spending bill, which means the U.S. and Israel will be intimately merging their military technology to a significantly greater extent than they already were.
And hell, why not. Why keep pretending the US and Israeli war machines are two separate entities. Why keep pretending Israel’s war crimes are separate from America’s war crimes.
If you’re already living together, you might as well get married.
— U.S. human rights expert and antiwar activist Dan Kovalik was recently detained at Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport by U.K. counterterrorism police, where they reportedly confiscated his devices, interrogated him, took his fingerprints, and even took a DNA sample.
The empire’s war on dissent continues.
— Also in the U.K., The Canary has been de-banked by Lloyds, placing the anti-Zionist outlet under immediate financial crisis. As of this writing Lloyds has refused to justify the move, but this new development is definitely something to keep an eye on. If banks start dropping dissident media because of their content, we’re all in a whole lot of trouble.
— You always see liberal Zionists claiming that it’s possible to love Israel and hate Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This is an absurd position to hold, because there’s nothing you can hate about Netanyahu that isn’t also innately true of the apartheid state of Israel.
Netanyahu signing the Pentagon guest book on July 9, 2025. (DoD /Alexander Kubitza)
Hate Netanyahu because he’s racist? Israel has always been racist.
Hate Netanyahu because he’s a war criminal? Israel has always committed war crimes.
Hate Netanyahu because he abuses and oppresses Palestinians? Israel has always abused and oppressed Palestinians.
Hate Netanyahu because he starts wars with Israel’s neighbors? Israel has always started wars with its neighbors.
Liberal Zionists act like Netanyahu has all these bad qualities that the genocidal apartheid state of Israel does not also have, but that’s just plain false. Israel was built on the premise of nonstop violence and abuse, and nonstop violence and abuse is all it has ever delivered, from its very inception.
Israel was built on a political ideology that is inherently racist and violent, and it is that racism and violence that elevated Benjamin Netanyahu to power.
Netanyahu didn’t create Israel’s violence and racism. Israel’s violence and racism created Netanyahu.
Caitlin Johnstone’s work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following her on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud, YouTube, or throwing some money into her tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy her books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff she publishes is to subscribe to the mailing list at her website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything she publishes. For more info on who she is, where she stands and what she’s trying to do with her platform, click here. All works are co-authored with her American husband Tim Foley.
This article is from Caitlin’s Newsletter and re-published with permission.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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Invoking old ‘enemies’ to feed fear.
The playbook of desperados.
“—U.S. House lawmakers have blocked a congressional debate to remove Section 219 from the national defense spending bill, which means the U.S. and Israel will be intimately merging their military technology…”
Of course, this will make it nearly impossible for scholars and activists to trace the specific amounts of U.S. taxpayer dollars going to the Jewish supremacist state. When funds and budgets are all essentially pooled together in one big department, tracing will get lost.
We are all so used to call this entirely artificial and illegal entity ‘israel’, which is actually occupied Palestine entirely.
Could it help to start denying calling this mass murdering severely criminal syndicate, what the zionists want to be called?
Talking about the occupied Palestine territory, I started to only mention “what is still called ‘israel'”.
Denying the acknowledgement of this so called state.
It finally should find recognition nowhere in the world.
And all those individuals, who were and are committing crimes must be held accountable, of course including those from behind the scenes pulling the puppet strings.
We all live on a one true communal ecosystem!
The Trump administration recently ordered the exhumation of Joseph McCarthy’s corpse, and was pleasantly surprised to find it still fresh and ugly. Trump’s panic attack must be contagious, given the palpable alarm of right wing outlets across the land. My feeds have been bombarded with ‘information’ about socialism from the sober and stalwart Hoover Institute { ‘An increasing number of Americans are expressing interest in socialism [!!!!]’}. Much of the looming crisis in America can be linked to the U.S. / Israel ‘special relationship.’ Trump, the first U.S. president dumb enough to fall for Bibi’s sales pitch for war with Iran, probably wouldn’t have done so independently. Not to suggest the bloviating huckster isn’t a bellicose monster that enjoys blowing people and things up. I just think his warmongering priorities would have been elsewhere. The Devil only comes in when invited, and the draconian censorship regime in the West is usually rationalized as a clampdown on ‘antisemitism.’ Though the Empire and its Western subjects don’t need the Zionist regime to embrace fascism – one evil hand washes another in the blood of innocents.
Beautifully done on fear-mongering and the tricky segue into the Netanyahu-Israel identity, but…
“…an ideology with no meaningful political existence in the United States.” This is just wrong; Communism has the same role in the American Patriot religion as the devil has in Christianity. I realize that Johnstone is correctly saying that there is no actual reality to the existence of communism function in the US, but it is still a powerful political tool. A huge part of the population will quiver before the word in Pavlovian response.
Thanks to Caitlin Johnstone for this courageous and well-reasoned presentation of the usual fake-monster tactics of tyrants, and the grotesque moral corruption and propaganda scamming of the zionists.