‘A communist caucus’: Trump gives Republicans their midterms enemy

Por Megan Messerly — POLITICO – TOP Stories

DALLAS — Republicans at the midterm convention wanted to pick a fight. And no one, they say, does it better than President Donald Trump.

Trump, on the first night of the whirlwind two-day convention, warned of a “communist” takeover he said would destroy the nation. Voters, he suggested, have no choice but to elect Republicans at the ballot box in November.

“In state after state, the Democrat establishment has been overthrown and replaced by crazed lunatics and radicals. They call themselves Democrat socialists, but actually, they’re communists,” Trump said. “America has beaten communism before, and we will beat it again.”

“If they win, the greatest legislative body in history will, for the first time ever, be controlled by a communist caucus,” he added.

His spirited, swashbuckling remarks were the capstone to a day in which Republicans — including multiple cabinet secretaries, sitting congressmen, and hopeful candidates — pilloried Democrats as “crazy communists,” dabbled in Islamophobia and used profanity that would have made the some old guard GOP blush. Ten speakers Wednesday night — including Trump — centered their speeches around the threat of the far left.

“The radical left is relentless in their pursuit to remake America in the image of every socialist hellscape of the last century, to import the misery of failed workers’ paradises like the Soviet Bloc, Caracas and Havana,” said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, during his speech.

Trump, being Trump, relished in his weave to a slew of other topics, including his success at securing the border, the new ballroom he’s building, a suggestion to rename New Mexico “New America” and the Strait of Hormuz the “Trump Strait” and his thoughts on Texas Attorney General and Senate candidate Ken Paxton’s wardrobe.

He promised a $5,000 dividend to every adult citizen if Republicans retain power in a speech railing against socialism.

But the climax of his speech was his warning about what would happen if the “Marxists” take control of Congress.

“A vote for any Democrat this year, anywhere in the country, is a vote to let a small and dangerous group of extremists hold our Congress and our country hostage,” said Trump, who is slated to speak again Thursday night. “If they win, every bill becomes a ransom negotiation. It’ll be very tough. If we want to fund the military, then we’ll have to pay the Marxists who want to destroy it.”

Their rhetoric underscores an implicit understanding many on the ground in Dallas privately acknowledge: that they face an unhappy electorate angry over rising costs and a stalled war in the Middle East. While Trump and his fellow Republicans made an affirmative case for the GOP — talking tax cuts, crime reduction and border enforcement — the unmistakable appeal to voters was that whatever misgivings they have about the president, electing a Democrat would make everything worse.

“I’m telling my colleagues and candidates — talk about where the Democrat socialists want to go. I mean, they got every crazy thing you could think of,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said in an interview. “If the left gets their way, particularly these Democrat socialists, they will ruin what this country is always giving we the people — the chance to have a goal, have a dream, and make it happen.”

Trump’s polling is at record lows, and he is in Dallas at least in part to convince his most loyal supporters, who typically skip midterm elections, that he needs them in November. To that end, the speech provided plenty of made-to-go-viral moments to juice the base, ones that are likely to reverberate far further than the crowd in Dallas and those who tuned into his remarks live.

Whether the message lands with a public broadly discontented with the GOP remains to be seen, but it’s exactly the tonic Republicans chatting in the halls of the American Airlines Center in the hours leading up to the speech said they wanted.

“This is not your father’s Democrat Party. The Democratic Party has been completely taken over by crazy communists,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said in his speech. “I call it the Bolshevik Revolution in the Democratic Party.”

Mike Bouchard, who is running for Michigan’s 10th Congressional District, said that “socialism is on the ballot in Michigan this November.”

“Far-left policies under socialism are the poison that will either be defeated by this generation or it will haunt the next,” he said.

Despite Trump’s penchant for weaving off message, which he did multiple times throughout his nearly two-hour address, Republicans largely still believe he remains their party’s best messenger — especially when it comes to drawing a contrast with Democrats.

“Trump should remind Americans where we were when he started, what he’s accomplished with the border and crime, and the choice between Team America — Republicans — and Team Mohamed — Democrats,” said conservative lawyer and longtime Trump ally Mike Davis before Trump took the stage.

It was the president’s effectiveness in painting Democrats as extreme in 2024 — including their position on transgender rights — that in part won him the election. Republicans see in that election a winning model they are seeking to apply to the midterms.

“It’s so important to talk about the fact that the Democratic Party has been taken over by an extreme minority that even Democrats are not comfortable with,” said Georgia GOP party chair Josh McKoon. “If you give Democrats control of the House of Representatives, it’s going to be two years of impeachment investigations. There’ll be nothing done to address economic anxiety or economic problems for working-class regular Americans if they take power, because they are enthralled to this very small extreme element within their own [party].”

They suggested that the Democratic Party’s more moderate wing is being subsumed by democratic-socialists because of the lack of a clear agenda from congressional leadership. That, they argued, is a sign of where Democratic voters will be driving their party in the years to come.

Throughout the evening, Republicans invoked a host of Democratic boogeymen — including New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) — as avatars of the next generation of far-left Democratic leaders. All three are Muslim.

“What is it that the Democrats are running on? If I ask anybody here, can you tell me what Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer’s platform is for taking back the majority? Not one of you could answer it, other than they hate Trump,” said Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), who is in a close reelection fight. “If I ask you what’s the DSA platform, you could easily rattle off at least 10 things.”

But none laid into El-Sayed quite like Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who went on a lengthy tirade in which he called the Michigan Democrat “dangerous, radical and weird,” criticizing everything from his past comments on football to his decision to campaign with the far-left political streamer Hasan Piker.

“In South Carolina, we call that hogwash,” Scott said.

Mia McCarthy, Erin Doherty, Alex Gangitano, Cheyanne Daniels, Jalen Beckford and Ashley Ahn contributed to this report.

Fonte: POLITICO – TOP Stories