GOP reboots the Red Scare as young Democrats embrace socialism

70 years after the Red Scare and 35 years after the fall of the Soviet Union, President Trump and Republicans are trying to re-introduce a national fear of "godless communists" ahead of the critical midterms.

Why it matters: A wave of resounding victories by Democratic Socialists has the GOP trotting out a message that last worked when most of those candidates weren't even born.

It's too soon to know if the message is working — but Trump and Republican strategists see an opening with voters old enough to remember Soviet-era nuclear drills and spy dramas.

The big picture: Former Trump aide Steve Bannon has argued for years that former Wisconsin Sen. Joe McCarthy was right about communism's widespread infiltration into the U.S. government.

On Sunday, Trump called communism "the Greatest Threat to our Country since World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor, or 9/11!"

Once a fringe view, now right-wing voices seem to be calling for a McCarthyism revival.

What they're saying: "It's a common electoral strategy for conservatives to attack liberals, progressives, democratic socialists as communists, and imply therefore that they are much more extreme than they actually are," Kathryn Olmsted, a U.C. Davis distinguished professor of history, tells Axios.

But, she adds, "we're definitely reaching a new fever pitch."

The other side: "The Democrats' embrace of socialism and communism is an existential threat to our country. President Trump will keep calling out their radicalism and drawing a sharp contrast with his commonsense, America First agenda," White House spokesperson Olivia Wales said in a statement.

The intrigue: Trump mentor Roy Cohn was McCarthy's chief counsel during his infamous anticommunist campaign.

"Trump really is a Cold War person ... that's that's when he came of age, it's how he formed his political ideas," says Beverly Gage, a Pulitzer-prize-winning historian.

She adds, "But I guess the question is, 30 some years out from the end of the Cold War, is the United States actually still susceptible to that kind of political language?"

Reality check: Democratic socialism is not communism. New York's Zohran Mamdani and Washington, D.C., mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George both call for expanded government programs, Axios' Josephine Walker writes.

"Any attempt to smear us as 'extremists' falls flat when so many Americans are struggling with the rising cost of housing, homelessness, unaffordable healthcare, and underfunded schools," a DSA spokesperson told Axios in a statement.

Still, Democrats are grappling with what it means for progressives and young Americans embracing labels that once stoked fears of communism.

Between the lines: Red-baiting "has much less resonance for a younger generation, which did not grow up living under the shadow of the Soviet Union," says Ethan Porter, co-director of GW's Institute for Data, Democracy and Politics.

"For many young voters, communism is just not an effective boogeyman."

Zoom out: Nevertheless, Republicans are echoing Trump's midterm message.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said last week that communism is "on our own shores."

Other far-right voices suggested reviving the 1954 Communist Control Act — which banned the Communist Party — as a way to crack down on Democratic socialists.

By the numbers: U.S. college students have a sunnier view of socialism than capitalism, according to an October Axios-Generation Lab poll.

Similarly, Americans' positive views of capitalism fell to a new low in Gallup's trend last year, but they remained higher than opinions about socialism.

Americans retain overwhelmingly unfavorable views of communism, per a 2025 CATO Institute/YouGov poll — but respondents under 30 were a different story, with around a third holding a favorable view.

What we're watching: Whether Trump's anticommunist alarm carries modern political weight.

Go deeper: House Democrats brace for a "Freedom Caucus of the left"