GOP reboots the Red Scare as young Democrats embrace socialism

• It's too soon to know if the message is working — but Trump and Republican strategists see an opening with voters old enough to remember Soviet-era nuclear drills and spy dramas.

The big picture: Former Trump aide Steve Bannon has argued for years that former Wisconsin Sen. Joe McCarthy was right about communism's widespread infiltration into the U.S. government.

• On Sunday, Trump called communism "the Greatest Threat to our Country since World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor, or 9/11!"
• Once a fringe view, now right-wing voices seem to be calling for a McCarthyism revival.

What they're saying: "It's a common electoral strategy for conservatives to attack liberals, progressives, democratic socialists as communists, and imply therefore that they are much more extreme than they actually are," Kathryn Olmsted, a U.C. Davis distinguished professor of history, tells Axios.

• But, she adds, "we're definitely reaching a new fever pitch."

The other side: "The Democrats' embrace of socialism and communism is an existential threat to our country. President Trump will keep calling out their radicalism and drawing a sharp contrast with his commonsense, America First agenda," White House spokesperson Olivia Wales said in a statement.

The intrigue: Trump mentor Roy Cohn was McCarthy's chief counsel during his infamous anticommunist campaign.

• "Trump really is a Cold War person ... that's that's when he came of age, it's how he formed his political ideas," says Beverly Gage, a Pulitzer-prize-winning historian.
• She adds, "But I guess the question is, 30 some years out from the end of the Cold War, is the United States actually still susceptible to that kind of political language?"

Reality check: Democratic socialism is not communism. New York's Zohran Mamdani and Washington, D.C., mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George both call for expanded government programs, Axios' Josephine Walker writes.

• "Any attempt to smear us as 'extremists' falls flat when so many Americans are struggling with the rising cost of housing, homelessness, unaffordable healthcare, and underfunded schools," a DSA spokesperson told Axios in a statement.
• Still, Democrats are grappling with what it means for progressives and young Americans embracing labels that once stoked fears of communism.

Between the lines: Red-baiting "has much less resonance for a younger generation, which did not grow up living under the shadow of the Soviet Union," says Ethan Porter, co-director of GW's Institute for Data, Democracy and Politics.

• "For many young voters, communism is just not an effective boogeyman."

Zoom out: Nevertheless, Republicans are echoing Trump's midterm message.

• House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said last week that communism is "on our own shores."
• Other far-right voices suggested reviving the 1954 Communist Control Act — which banned the Communist Party — as a way to crack down on Democratic socialists.

By the numbers: U.S. college students have a sunnier view of socialism than capitalism, according to an October Axios-Generation Lab poll.

• Similarly, Americans' positive views of capitalism fell to a new low in Gallup's trend last year, but they remained higher than opinions about socialism.
• Americans retain overwhelmingly unfavorable views of communism, per a 2025 CATO Institute/YouGov poll — but respondents under 30 were a different story, with around a third holding a favorable view.

What we're watching: Whether Trump's anticommunist alarm carries modern political weight.

Go deeper: House Democrats brace for a "Freedom Caucus of the left"