Republicans reignite the red scare in service of Trump

[marmar]

Republicans reignite the red scare in service of Trump
Why the right has suddenly returned to screaming about communism

By HEATHER DIGBY PARTON
Columnist
PUBLISHED JUNE 28, 2023 9:13AM (EDT)


(Salon) Conservatives have been screaming about socialists scheming to destroy everything Real Americans hold dear for as long as anyone alive can remember. Going back more than a hundred years to the first Red Scare in 1919, when the government rounded up thousands of socialists, anarchists and communists during the Palmer raids, there have been periodic paroxysms of outrage aimed at this perennial boogeyman.

In the 1920s and 30s, it was evoked to oppose the labor movement and the policies of President Franklin Roosevelt as he tried to bring the country back from the Great Depression. After World War II, anti-Communism became the official foreign policy of both parties and the Republicans began to use it as a cudgel to beat the Democratic Party politically. Throughout the 1940s and 50s, the GOP focused as much on "the enemy within" as America's cold war adversaries. The House UnAmerican Activities Committee "investigated" anyone who had once been associated with the American Communist Party, gradually expanding their probe into anyone they suspected of being insufficiently patriotic or whose political influence they believed was harmful to American culture. Then along came Joseph McCarthy, who waved around supposed lists of names of Soviet spies or "fellow travelers" he said had infiltrated the U.S. government and military. This went on for years and years, ruining the lives of untold numbers of people.

....(snip)....

But with all of this ongoing talk about socialism over the years, Republicans had more or less stopped hurling the "commie" tag at their political adversaries. After all, since the dissolution of the Soviet Union and China's entry into the capitalist marketplace, it makes even less sense than it used to.

Yet it's now suddenly become commonplace.

Link to tweet

Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene appeared at White Nationalist conventions referring to the "Democrats, who are the Communist Party of the United States of America." South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem wrote an op-ed in which she said, "the idea that Georgia, of all places, could elect two communists to the United States Senate was ridiculous."

....(snip)....

But there are more practical, prosaic reasons for this escalation in commie catcalling. The most obvious is that older voters tend to vote Republican and they have a visceral reaction to the "C" word. They react with reflexive hostility and are the most likely to think such a preposterous claim makes sense. The constant references to the "Chinese Communist Party" as the great enemy also hits home with those people. And there is some evidence that Republicans have made some inroads with certain Hispanic and Asian immigrant groups who are deeply hostile to the communist regimes from which they emigrated. ...............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2023/06/28/reignite-the-red-scare-in-of/

[multigraincracker]

1. So, that's what the

White Nationalist are saying?

[bucolic_frolic]

2. Red Scare has been rolling around since about 1909-10

Conservative corporate America was caught off guard by the socialist and even anarchist ideas in immigrant areas post-1900. By 1910 corporate America, through trade associations, began to counter the movement with co-optation - nascent company housing, health offices (nurses on duty), savings plans. Civic clubs and service associations in small towns and cities chimed in, and mayor-council governments replaced machine politics. All detailed in a fascinating book (to me at least), The Corporate Ideal in the Liberal State. J. Weinstein, 1969 I think.

[madaboutharry]

3. What an asshole.

He was all for his own private version of socialism when he grifted Medicare.

[underpants]

4. And yet they are soooo in bed with Russia

I know Russia is not communist anymore. This is part of the Republicans MO - get in front and project.

[spanone]

5. Scott should still be in jail over his fleecing of medicare

Criminal

FRAUD INVESTIGATION AND SETTLEMENT

On March 19, 1997, investigators from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Health and Human Services served search warrants at Columbia/HCA facilities in El Paso and on dozens of doctors with suspected ties to the company.[31] Eight days after the initial raid, Scott signed his last SEC report as a hospital executive. Four months later, the board of directors pressured him to resign as chairman and CEO.[32] He was succeeded by Thomas F. Frist Jr.[33] Scott was paid $9.88 million in a settlement, and left owning 10 million shares of stock then worth more than $350 million.[34][35][36] The directors had been warned in the company's annual public reports to stockholders that incentives Columbia/HCA offered doctors could run afoul of a federal anti-kickback law passed in order to limit or eliminate instances of conflicts of interest in Medicare and Medicaid.[33]

During Scott's 2000 deposition, he pleaded the Fifth Amendment 75 times.[37] In settlements reached in 2000 and 2002, Columbia/HCA pleaded guilty to 14 felonies and agreed to a $600+ million fine in what was at the time the largest health care fraud settlement in U.S. history. Columbia/HCA admitted systematically overcharging the government by claiming marketing costs as reimbursable, by striking illegal deals with home care agencies, and by filing false data about use of hospital space. It also admitted to fraudulently billing Medicare and other health programs by inflating the seriousness of diagnoses and to giving doctors partnerships in company hospitals as a kickback for the doctors referring patients to HCA. It filed false cost reports, fraudulently billing Medicare for home health care workers, and paid kickbacks in the sale of home health agencies and to doctors to refer patients. In addition, it gave doctors "loans" never intending to be repaid, free rent, free office furniture, and free drugs from hospital pharmacies.[38][7]

In late 2002, HCA agreed to pay the United States government $631 million, plus interest, and $17.5 million to state Medicaid agencies, in addition to $250 million paid up to that point to resolve outstanding Medicare expense claims.[39] In all, civil lawsuits cost HCA more than $2 billion to settle; at the time, this was the largest fraud settlement in U.S. history.[40][41]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Scott#U.S._Senate

[Midnight Writer]

11. Thanks. This should be noted every time he opens his mouth.

[Mad_Machine76]

6. I don't know who needs to hear this

but *real* Communists and Socialists think modern day Democrats are basically "moderate Republicans"

[ananda]

13. True.

...

[The Unmitigated Gall]

7. Socialism, true socialism as an organized political force

In serious contention has been gone from US politics for generations. But fascism is here right now and fascists like Rick Scott would love to tear the nation apart while distracting people with their whining about socialists.

Fascist puke-holes can’t do anything without setting up a boogeyman.

[Cosmocat]

10. For the life of me I can't understand why Ds can't talk about ACTUAL fascism

nm

[EYESORE 9001]

8. Walking cadaver sez wut

Thieving MFer should be be in prison

[tableturner]

9. GOP is in love with Putin, a REAL Communist/socialist, but WE are Communists/socialists?

They take nothing and turn it into something big...we take something big and turn it into nothing! It's a result of their lack of fear in ginning up fake controversies, along with the constant message discipline about the fake controversies that does it for them, and unfortunately, our side's pusillanimity that lets their issues/problems/scandals fade.

A perfect example is the DOJ's reluctance, as reported last week, to start the investigation of Trump regarding the planning of 1-6 because they did not want to look political, even though there was much information made public that should have caused them to start it much sooner than they did. On the other side, they have taken absolutely nothing over and over again and turned those "nothings" into "somethings" by virtue of their lack of fear in raising hell about absolutely nothing, and their message discipline in doing so.

Why does it have to be that way?

[Duppers]

12. We know why.