Trump has run out of cards to play in the midterm elections, which is why he’s now talking about the “communist menace”.

He can’t talk about the economy because prices continue to rise faster than wages, which means most Americans are getting poorer. He can’t talk about foreign policy because his war in Iran has been a debacle, his tariffs an utter failure, and he obviously hasn’t settled the war in Ukraine on “day one”. He can’t talk about immigration because his raids and mass deportations have become so unpopular.

So, facing the midterm elections, what’s left?

He’s resorting to the oldest of rightwing tropes – accusing Democrats (especially a rising generation of new, young, vigorous Democratic politicians) of being communists.

He kicked off America’s 250th anniversary celebrations on Friday with a speech at Mount Rushmore extolling American culture and warning of a resurgence of the “communist menace”. With the granite faces of four of his predecessors behind him, Trump took aim at what he called “radicals” and “extremists”.

“There is now a resurgence of the communist menace in our land, including from newcomers to our country who embrace ideas totally opposed to our way of life and our great success. You can be a communist, or you can be a patriot. You cannot be both.”

For years, Trump has been trying to scare Americans about Democrats who advocate Medicare for All, universal childcare, free public higher education and higher taxes on the super-wealthy to pay for them (all of which the rising young Democrats are advocating).

But he hasn’t gotten anywhere because these initiatives are supported by most Americans.

So now he’s throwing scary labels at the wall and seeing what sticks.

Communism was the scare word used after the first and second world wars to crack the whip on the left. It provoked witch-hunts and ruined careers.

It made the former Wisconsin senator Joe McCarthy a one-man bomb squad in the early 1950s,........

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