Donald Trump Has a New—and Stupid and Likely Ineffective—Favorite Word

He thinks he’s finally found a winning message to rescue the Republicans’ dim midterm chances. But as usual, he’s probably fooling himself.

Donald Trump has a new favorite word. He’s been calling Democrats “communists” ever since a few democratic socialists won the party’s House primaries. “These are hardcore, godless communists,” he told the Faith & Freedom Coalition conference last month. “This is the most serious threat to our country since its existence.” GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson, the ever-loyal Shih Tzu on his emperor’s lap, has picked it up as well. The midterms, he said recently, will pit “common sense versus communism.”

Well. The first question here is whether Americans even know what communism is (or was) anymore. There are five countries in the world that still call themselves communist, but one of those is China, which at least in economic terms barely counts (the others are Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, and Laos). More than that, it’s getting to be close to 40 years now since the Eastern bloc collapsed. A person would have to be at least 45 years old to have any memory of all that. Right now, 57.5 percent of Americans are under that age.

As you’d expect, young people who weren’t alive to see how cruel, corrupt, and lethargic the Soviet Union was either don’t know much about communism or don’t see it as such a bad thing. A poll released last week by the libertarian Cato Institute had some interesting numbers. Among all Americans, capitalism was viewed favorably by just 52 percent (that’s the number that would be worrying me if I were a Friedmanesque free-marketeer; it’s insanely low!). Socialism was viewed favorably by 37........

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