Republicans are intensifying attacks on the Democratic Party as Democratic Socialists of America-backed candidates win primaries nationwide, arguing the movement reflects a broader ideological shift with consequences for the November elections.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans are making opposition to communism a central campaign theme as the November elections approach, arguing that recent victories by Democratic Socialists of America-backed candidates show the Democratic Party is moving further toward the far left.
“The barbarians are inside the gate,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said during a recent House Republican leadership news conference, framing the election as a struggle over the country’s political and economic direction.
Trump has repeatedly used similar language in campaign appearances. During a speech last week in Georgia, he criticized Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff and described the broader Democratic Party as communist. Ossoff is seeking reelection against Trump-backed Republican Rep. Mike Collins and is a leading GOP target because he is the only Democratic senator running this year in a state Trump carried in 2024.
“Jon Ossoff and the Democrat communists want to let the Marxists into power, bankrupt your families, and leave you totally undefended with wide-open borders,” Trump said.
The expanding Republican message comes as the Democratic Socialists of America has endorsed candidates and recorded victories in Colorado, Georgia, Kentucky, Los Angeles, New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., according to a Just the News report. Republicans contend those gains demonstrate that democratic socialist organizations are exerting greater influence over Democratic candidates and policy priorities.
New York Republican congressional candidate Mike LiPetri said Democrats were allowing their party to be redirected by its most progressive factions.
“You’re seeing Democrats throughout, not only in New York but throughout the nation, really cave to the far left. These are individuals who have now hijacked the Democratic Party, and they try to cast themselves as something that they’re frankly not,” LiPetri told the “Just the News, No Noise” show last week.
LiPetri accused the DSA of using “propaganda” to shape public opinion and “deceive the people through these headlines,” while pursuing “reckless spending” that would be paid for by taxpayers.
Johnson expanded on the argument at another House Republican leadership news conference, describing the political divide as a fundamental question about whether the United States will remain a constitutional republic and global power.
“Now, we are quite literally in a contest to determine whether we’re going to maintain our status as the world’s great superpower […] as a constitutional republic, or we’re going to tear that down to the foundation like the communist Democrats want to do,” Johnson said.
Despite the broader Republican characterization, the only reported official Communist Party candidate in the current election cycle is Brandon Daley, who is running in Georgia’s 2nd Congressional District. Other current and former candidates, however, have faced scrutiny over past statements involving communism or communist leaders.
Graham Platner, a Democrat who recently withdrew from the Maine Senate race, previously wrote on Reddit, “I got older and became a communist.” Platner later disavowed the posts and said he had never been a communist.
Darializa Avila Chevalier, a progressive democratic socialist who won a New York congressional primary this summer, previously posted praise for historical figures including Vladimir Lenin. Chevalier has since distanced herself from the posts, saying they were written years ago and no longer reflect her views.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also argued during a June 29 appearance on “Fox & Friends” that the Democratic Party has undergone a fundamental ideological change. Trump has separately called communism a “mortal threat to American liberty.”
“This is not your granddaddy’s Democrat Party,” Leavitt said. “These are communists. The president is trying to call them that. They want to abolish private prisons, they want to abolish the police, they want to abolish private property.”
News organizations including CNN, TIME Magazine and The Associated Press have published reports distinguishing democratic socialism from traditional Marxist communism.
A July 8 CNN report, which cited experts and a DSA co-chair, said communist economic theory is not being fully practiced by modern governments, “Even if hybrid capitalist economies like China and Russia have retained the authoritarian fist of their predecessors.”
The report argued that, “nearly 37 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall,” Republicans were reviving “the tactic of red-baiting,” comparing the rhetoric to Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s pursuit of alleged communist agents and sympathizers during the 1940s and 1950s.
Traditional Marxist communism was described in the report as “a stateless, classless, moneyless society and common ownership of property and means of production.” By contrast, it said democratic socialist proposals advanced by figures such as New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani were “comparable to democratic socialists in Europe” and included universal health care, public housing and government intervention in food and transportation prices.
The DSA’s own description of democratic socialism states that “capitalism is a system designed by the owning class to exploit the rest of us” and calls for replacing it with “democratic socialism.” Its platform includes collective ownership of energy production and transportation, Medicare for All, defunding police departments and enacting the Green New Deal.
Some former members and internal critics contend the organization has moved beyond democratic socialism and come under the influence of explicitly communist factions. Former DSA member Jake Altman told Fox News’ “Saturday in America” that communists had “captured” the organization and were attempting to push the Democratic Party further left.
“Their organization has been captured,” Altman said. “One of my real concerns is that we see a lot of resistance to anti-communism within the DSA, even from the moderate wing of the DSA, and I think this is very, very dangerous.”
Altman also said some members were not operating “in good faith.” The DSA did not respond to requests for comment.
An analysis by City Journal, which is published by the conservative Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, reported that most members of the DSA’s governing National Political Committee openly identified with communist ideology.
According to the report, the moderate Socialist Majority Caucus and Green New Deal slate controlled a majority on the committee from 2021 through 2023, before a coalition of communist caucuses gained control. The ideological change was also documented by InfluenceWatch, a project of the conservative Capital Research Center.
Vincent Lima, political committee chairman of the Socialist Majority Caucus, told City Journal that the DSA’s leadership was divided between a “mass politics” bloc seeking to build socialism through elections and organized labor, and a “sectarian” faction that views the organization as a vehicle for “the final crisis of capitalism to sweep a socialist party into power.”
Republicans have used those reports to argue that democratic socialism can serve as a transition toward communism rather than a separate or moderate ideology.
“They don’t need little nicknames like the Democratic Socialists of America and these acronyms. Just tell the American people what you believe in – communism,” Rep. Lisa McClain, R-Mich., said at the House GOP leadership news conference last week. “And, of course, communism arrives wearing a face.”
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., whose mother fled Cuba, joined McClain in criticizing the movement. Malliotakis compared Mamdani’s proposals, including government-operated supermarkets, with policies implemented under communist rule in Cuba.
Trump has incorporated the anti-communism argument into a series of recent speeches, including remarks at the NATO summit on July 8, Mount Rushmore on July 3 and the National Mall during the July 4 “Salute to America” celebration.
Democratic leaders have responded by urging party unity after the primary season rather than engaging directly with Republican accusations. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., addressed the victories of DSA-backed candidates by telling Democrats that “the enemy is Donald Trump and MAGA extremism.”
The competing messages are likely to remain prominent through November. Republicans are presenting democratic socialist primary wins as evidence of a larger transformation inside the Democratic Party, while Democrats are seeking to keep their coalition focused on defeating Trump-aligned candidates and regaining political power.
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