Ben Burgis watched the first night of the Republicans’ midterm “convention” — an event where nobody was nominated and no official business of any kind was conducted — and noticed something strange: the one subject that reliably fired up the room was socialism. Not taxes, not immigration, not the war. Socialism.
The rhetoric was maximal:
- Steve Scalise claimed there had been a “Bolshevik Revolution in the Democrat party.”
- Tom Emmer denounced “the Communist Party, uh, excuse me, the Democrats,” along with the “Marxists, communists, and anarchists” who want to “destroy” America.
- Trump’s keynote: “They call themselves Democrat socialists, but actually they’re communists. . . . It’s going to be a communist country if they win.”
What none of them said is the interesting part. Across the whole night:
- Medicare for All was never uttered once — not by a single speaker.
- Universal daycare, medical bankruptcy, and student debt went unmentioned.
- Emmer attacked “health care for illegals” while avoiding whether the 96.7 percent of people living here who aren’t undocumented immigrants would also get free health care.
- He warned about “Mamdani the commie” and substandard municipal housing, but skipped the rent freeze and the hearings going after negligent landlords.
Burgis’s point is that the red-baiting only works as long as the policies stay unnamed. The moment you spell out what democratic socialists actually want — a hospital visit that doesn’t require a credit card, daycare for anyone who wants it, workplaces run by the people who work in them — the applause line dies. Trump knows better than to give that speech.
The strategic wager underneath is that ordinary people can be kept hating immigrants more than they want health care or lower rent. Burgis doesn’t think that bet pays off in the long run.