{"id":2640425,"date":"2026-08-04T15:45:02","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T19:45:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignrepublicans-calling-your-opponents-communists-isnt-enough\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T15:47:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T19:47:00","slug":"utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignrepublicans-calling-your-opponents-communists-isnt-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignrepublicans-calling-your-opponents-communists-isnt-enough\/","title":{"rendered":"Republicans: Calling Your Opponents Communists Isn&#8217;t Enough"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">14<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Futm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignrepublicans-calling-your-opponents-communists-isnt-enough%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2640425&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The article discusses how socialist ideas and Marxist principles, once widely condemned and associated with oppressive regimes, are now increasingly accepted and repackaged as benevolent concepts like \u201cequality\u201d and \u201cfor the people.\u201d Public perception has shifted, with many Americans not only accepting but even supporting policies rooted in socialist ideology, despite thier origins in Marxism.Political strategists, particularly Republicans, have historically tried to associate Democrats with radical socialism or communism to discredit them. However,this tactic is less effective as many voters no longer view socialism negatively; some even see it as good. The article explains that Democrats have downplayed or rebranded marxist ideas, portraying redistribution and other socialist policies as moral obligations rather than class conflict, which has contributed to a growing acceptance of radical policies like free buses, government-run stores, and tax increases. The piece warns that by avoiding direct acknowledgment of socialist roots and consequences, leftists are successfully selling these policies, making it challenging for Republicans to combat their rise solely through labeling.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>\u201cCommune means community. It\u2019s for the people,\u201d one woman told me Monday when I hit the streets of Manhattan for an exclusive <em>Hannity<\/em> segment. <\/p>\n<p>I was asking people about Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s plans to implement free buses, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/grocer-offers-one-of-his-locations-to-test-government-run-store-plan-but-his-one-condition-could-kill-the-deal\/\" title=\"Grocer Offers One of His Locations to Test ...-Run Store Plan - But His One Condition Could Kill the Deal\">city-run grocery stores<\/a>, and other social programs funded by taxing the rich even more. In most cases, the people I spoke with weren\u2019t too bothered by Mamdani\u2019s plans to strangle the rich. In fact, they agreed with the premise that people should contribute what they can afford so that everyone could have what they \u201cneed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But surely (I thought to myself) their answers would change once they learned this supposed compassionate philosophy came directly from Karl Marx. <\/p>\n<p>I was wrong. <\/p>\n<p>At one point in America, \u201cMarxism\u201d and \u201cKarl Marx\u201d met with public shunning and condemnation \u2014 and with good reason. Communist regimes inspired by Marx\u2019s ideology killed tens of millions of people. Those who managed to survive were left to deal with starvation, poverty, confiscation, tyranny, and political persecution.<\/p>\n<p>But Marxism doesn\u2019t carry the same stigma it once did. Its radical ideas have been repackaged as \u201cequity\u201d and \u201cequality,\u201d or, as one woman told me, being \u201cfor the people.\u201d Once voters accept the premise that communism is actually a benevolent force \u201cfor the people,\u201d revealing its origins does little to change their minds.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s a problem for Republicans, whose chief argument against the rising socialist tide has consistently been pointing at Democrats and shouting \u201ccommunist!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Politico <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/06\/25\/gop-zohran-mamdani-midterms-00423397\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">reported<\/a> last summer that \u201cRepublicans are racing to make Zohran Mamdani the face of the Democratic Party.\u201d Republicans planned to use Mamdani\u2019s proposals like tax hikes, rent freezes, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/chicago-mulls-government-owned-grocery-store-as-retailers-bolt-city\/\" title=\"Chicago considers ...-owned grocery store as retailers leave city.\">government-run grocery stores<\/a> as their \u201cattack line against \u2018radical socialist\u2019 Democrats,\u201d Politico reported.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRepublicans have repeatedly sought to elevate progressive New Yorkers to represent the entire party,\u201d the report continues, \u201cto mixed success in past elections.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And what was once \u201cmixed success\u201d is increasingly <em>no<\/em> success. <\/p>\n<p>Republicans wrongly assumed Mamdani\u2019s agenda was so obviously radical that merely attaching other Democrats to him would amount to political suicide. After House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries congratulated Mamdani on winning his primary last June, the National Republican Congressional Committee said in a<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/NRCC\/status\/1937896100310274294?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"> post on X<\/a>, \u201cEvery single Democrat now owns Mamdani\u2019s radical socialist agenda to defund police, abolish prisons &#038; stop ICE from deporting criminals.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But that assessment was a bad misread of how voters respond to Mamdani (and the socialist label).<\/p>\n<p>The people I spoke to didn\u2019t recoil at the mention of Marx. Some even thought Marx\u2019s ideology was objectively good. Nor were the people I spoke to rare. A recent <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/campaign\/5999669-democrats-identify-democratic-socialists\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">CNN poll<\/a> conducted by SSRS found that roughly \u201ca third of Democrats identify as socialists.\u201d For a growing number of voters, \u201csocialist\u201d is not an accusation to be ashamed of. It\u2019s perfectly acceptable to be socialist.<\/p>\n<p>As <a href=\"https:\/\/amgreatness.com\/2026\/08\/04\/is-communist-no-longer-a-slur\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Victor David Hanson<\/a> pointed out in a recent piece, the lines are increasingly blurred between \u201cDemocrats\u201d and \u201ccommunists.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe more the ossified Democratic Party claims that its growing cadre of socialist renegades are not really socialists,\u201d Hanson wrote, \u201cthe more they act like \u2014 and even appear comfortable being called \u2014 communists.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith every new policy they propose,\u201d he continued, \u201cthe socialists have been dropping the pretense that they are not Marxists.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hanson points out Democrats\u2019 open hatred of capitalism, along with their proposals to confiscate private property, abolish prisons and police, and abolish borders.<\/p>\n<p>As Hanson explains, these policies are becoming more radical, but voters are seemingly less repulsed by such radicalism \u2014 which is exactly why Republicans cannot think that just calling someone a \u201csocialist\u201d or \u201ccommunist\u201d is going to be politically effective. Those labels once communicated something objectionable and repulsive to the average American, but today, many Americans hear \u201cfree buses,\u201d \u201cequality,\u201d \u201cfree groceries,\u201d and so forth.<\/p>\n<p>How did this happen? It wasn\u2019t overnight, nor did the left try to make Americans like communism by defending gulags and breadlines. Instead, they separated Marxist promises from their consequences.<\/p>\n<p>Take Barack Obama, who in 2008 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.presidency.ucsb.edu\/documents\/mccain-campaign-press-release-mccain-palin-2008-launches-new-web-ad-joe-the-plumber?utm_source=chatgpt.com\">def<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.presidency.ucsb.edu\/documents\/mccain-campaign-press-release-mccain-palin-2008-launches-new-web-ad-joe-the-plumber?utm_source=chatgpt.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">e<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.presidency.ucsb.edu\/documents\/mccain-campaign-press-release-mccain-palin-2008-launches-new-web-ad-joe-the-plumber?utm_source=chatgpt.com\">nd<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.presidency.ucsb.edu\/documents\/mccain-campaign-press-release-mccain-palin-2008-launches-new-web-ad-joe-the-plumber?utm_source=chatgpt.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">e<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.presidency.ucsb.edu\/documents\/mccain-campaign-press-release-mccain-palin-2008-launches-new-web-ad-joe-the-plumber?utm_source=chatgpt.com\">d<\/a> raising taxes on the rich by saying: \u201cI think when you spread the wealth around, it\u2019s good for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Marx called for redistribution of resources according to need. Obama repackaged that as giving others \u201cbehind you\u201d a chance to succeed (as if the economy is a fixed pie and rich people take from the poor and prevent them from getting rich too). In other words, Obama \u201csoftened\u201d forced government confiscation by presenting it as merely helping your neighbor have an opportunity.<\/p>\n<p>Obama and other Democrats have all claimed that forced redistribution of wealth is also merely \u201cpaying your fair share.\u201d The talking point helped the left shift the narrative from \u201cthe government should confiscate your property and wealth so that everyone has an \u2018equal\u2019 amount of nothing\u201d to \u201cthere\u2019s a class of millionaires and billionaires who are not paying their \u2018fair share\u2019 while working families who \u2018play by the rules\u2019 are getting the short end of the stick.\u201d It shifted from class conflict (which is identifiably Marxist) to just a moral obligation that wealthy people have to \u201chelp\u201d others and promote \u201cequality.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Whether it\u2019s Obama, Bernie Sanders, AOC, Mamdani, or whatever other communist wants to come out of the woodwork, the bottom line is they are selling communist promises without ever mentioning the destructive reality of those promises \u2014 and it\u2019s working. Republicans will not defeat leftists merely by calling them communists, and if they don\u2019t learn that fast enough, we won\u2019t have a country.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Communism\u2019s appeal grows as voters overlook its origins<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":2640426,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Screenshot-2026-08-04-at-2.21.10-PM-scaled-e1785867780323-1024x577.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[5607,79473,35629,37408,3756],"class_list":["post-2640425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-communism","tag-opposition-strategy","tag-political-discourse","tag-political-rhetoric","tag-republicans"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Screenshot-2026-08-04-at-2.21.10-PM-scaled-e1785867780323-1024x577.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2640425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2640425"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2640425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2640429,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2640425\/revisions\/2640429"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2640426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2640425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2640425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2640425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}