Commentary: Republicans want to turn the clock back to the red-baiting Fifties

This is read by an automated voice.Please report any issues or inconsistencies here.

See more from the L.A.Times in Google Search.

Set us as preferred The Republican desire to turn the clock back to some (largely mythical) halcyon period of yore is well-known.President Trump often has expressed his admiration for the 1890s in America, an era of high tariffs.

The conservative assault on women’s reproductive rights harks back to the time before the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920 brought about universal suffrage.Lately, however, Trump and his followers have been evoking another period and another political trope.They’re crying about the threat of “communism,” which is so old that maybe they think it’s new again.Speaking on July 3 at Mt.

Rushmore, Trump said, “A generation after we fought and won the Cold War against the menace of communism, there is now a resurgence of the communist menace in our land, including from newcomers to our country who embrace ideas totally opposed to our way of life and our great success.” He called communism “a mortal threat to American liberty ...the greatest threat to our country, including World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor or even 9/11.” There can be only one capital.

Washington or Moscow.There can be only one atmosphere of government, the clear, pure, fresh air of free America, or the foul breath of communistic Russia.— Former New York Gov.

Al Smith takes up the anti-communist cudgel, in 1936On July 21, the State Dept.released a report titled “Cuba: the Capital of 21st Century Communism,” which employed verbiage redolent of the anti-communist past to smear progressive figures today — listing New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, progressive webcaster Amy Goodman and even Ben Cohen, the co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream among dozens of “fellow travelers” of communist Cuba.

This is an attempt to weaponize what Derick Dirmaier of Talking Points Memo labels “the politics of...