“These are not social Dumocrats [Democrats],” President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday. “These are hard core, godless Communists.”
He repeated the line to the conservative Faith and Freedom Coalition. It came days after progressive candidates backed by New York City’s democratic socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani, won major victories in New York. Trump named no candidates. He made only a glancing reference to “the recent Election of Communists in our Country.”
Then he got more sweeping. “These ruthless Communists will attack all Religions but, in particular, Christianity – They always do,” he said. He also claimed “assassinations of those who oppose them is a very important element of their Ideology,” said “They’re animals!” and called the matter “the Greatest Threat to our Country since its Founding 250 years ago!”
Al Jazeera pointed out that no self-identifying communists are running on the Democratic ticket ahead of the midterms, and none hold elected office.
Who the candidates are
Mamdani and the two candidates he backs, New York Democratic primary winners Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez, belong to the Democratic Socialists of America. So does Chris Rabb, a Pennsylvania state representative who won a Democratic congressional primary in a solidly blue district. The group has two members in Congress, Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib. Sen. Bernie Sanders hews close to democratic socialism but is not a member.
The two ideologies differ in method. Democratic socialists want to reach their goals through electoral politics. Communists, in countries where the ideology has been put into practice, gave up democracy for an all-controlling state.
Religion is not the dividing line Trump suggested, either. Mamdani, Tlaib and Avila Chevalier are Muslims, and Ocasio-Cortez identifies as Catholic. “There is a long tradition of religious socialism in the United States that has been ignored or forgotten,” the DSA’s Religion and Socialism group says on its website, adding that it “refuses to cede the ground of faith to the religious right.”
This is not the first time. Before Mamdani won the mayoral race last November, Trump had also falsely called him a communist.
The midterm backdrop
Republicans are bracing for a potentially punishing midterm election, with the president’s approval rating at an all-time low amid persistent cost-of-living concerns. Trump and his allies see the Democratic Party’s leftward shift as a weakness, and they are also courting the religious, largely Christian conservative base. Whether that works is unclear.
Polling shows the old stigma around the word socialism wearing down. A Gallup poll found positive views of capitalism fell from 61 percent in 2010 to 54 percent in 2025, while positive views of socialism rose from 36 to 39 percent. Among Democrats, favorable views of socialism climbed from 50 percent to 66 percent.
