Dwain Northey (Gen X)

The Red Scare Called. It Wants Its Script Back.

Watching the Republican Party resurrect the McCarthy-era Red Scare is like watching a band that hasn’t had a hit since the 1950s insist that this next tour is going to change everything.

According to Vice President J.D. Vance, Stephen Miller, and plenty of conservative commentators, Democrats aren’t just Democrats anymore. We’re socialists. And socialism, as everyone knows from the Republican cinematic universe, inevitably leads to communism. Then come the bread lines, government seizure of your lawn furniture, and your third grader comes home quoting Karl Marx instead of learning cursive.

It’s all very dramatic.

There’s just one tiny flaw.

The things they claim socialism will destroy are the exact things they’ve been trying to dismantle for years.

Public schools?

Republicans have spent decades pushing vouchers, privatization, charter expansion, and gutting the Department of Education. They’ve insisted public schools are failing while trying to redirect public money elsewhere. At the same time, they want schools to reflect their religious and cultural values while claiming everyone else is indoctrinating children.

So Democrats are supposedly going to destroy public education…

…by funding public education?

That’s certainly one strategy.

Police?

Every election cycle we’re told Democrats want to eliminate law enforcement. Yet many of the same Republicans warning about that are eager to slash federal spending, oppose grants to local governments, and reduce funding for programs they don’t like.

Healthcare?

They’ve spent years trying to repeal or reduce government healthcare programs while insisting Democrats are somehow the threat to your healthcare.

Government services?

Infrastructure?

Scientific research?

Environmental protection?

Every budget seems to feature another proposal to shrink, privatize, or eliminate programs that millions of Americans rely on.

Then they turn around and warn that Democrats are going to take those very programs away.

It’s like listening to the arsonist lecture everyone about fire safety.

And can we please have a conversation about the word “socialism”?

Apparently everything Democrats support is socialism.

Universal healthcare? Socialism.

School lunches? Socialism.

Libraries? Socialism.

Roads? Probably socialism.

At this rate, using a public restroom will require denouncing Che Guevara before you’re handed the key.

Meanwhile, I’d like to ask my proudly capitalist Republican friends one simple question.

What is insurance?

Seriously.

You’re required to buy auto insurance.

Many insist everyone should have health insurance.

Banks require homeowners insurance.

Businesses carry liability insurance.

Everyone pays into a giant pool of money.

Most people won’t use all of it.

Some people will need a lot of it.

The money from everyone helps cover the losses of the few.

Congratulations.

You’ve just described socialism.

The only difference is that instead of society benefiting, a corporation takes a profit off the top.

It’s socialism with shareholders.

Or, as I like to call it, for-profit socialism.

Somehow that’s perfectly acceptable.

Pooling risk so your neighbors don’t go bankrupt after a tornado? That’s apparently the free market.

Pooling tax dollars so every kid gets a decent education? Suddenly we’re one step away from the Soviet Union.

Make it make sense.

The irony is that conservatives already embrace collective responsibility whenever it benefits them.

They just object when the collection isn’t generating dividends for a corporation.

We socialize risk all the time.

Insurance.

The military.

Police.

Fire departments.

Social Security.

Medicare.

Public roads.

Air traffic control.

These are all systems built on the idea that everyone contributes because everyone benefits from living in a functioning society.

That’s not communism.

That’s called civilization.

The modern Republican strategy seems to rely on Americans having the political memory of a goldfish.

“We have to stop the socialists before they destroy public education!”

“…also we’d like to eliminate the Department of Education.”

“We have to stop them before they destroy government!”

“…government is the problem.”

“We have to stop them before they eliminate these public programs!”

“…which we’ve been trying to cut for the last thirty years.”

It’s difficult to fear someone stealing your house when the person warning you is already loading your furniture into their truck.

This isn’t really about socialism.

It’s certainly not about communism.

It’s about finding a convenient boogeyman so no one has to discuss policy. Calling someone a socialist is easier than explaining why schools need less funding. Calling someone a communist is easier than defending cuts to healthcare or scientific research.

It’s political Mad Libs.

Insert “socialist” wherever an actual argument should be.

For a movement that constantly warns us not to rewrite history, they’re awfully fond of recycling it.

The Cold War ended over three decades ago.

The Soviet Union no longer exists.

Joseph McCarthy is long gone.

Yet here we are, dusting off the same tired script and pretending that every Democrat is secretly plotting a Marxist revolution through school board meetings, wind turbines, and free school lunches.

The costumes have changed.

The actors have changed.

But the script?

The script still reads like it’s 1954.