Trump, GOP allies push case Democrat Party infiltrated with communist candidates as November nears

"The barbarians are inside the gate," said House Speaker Mike Johnson during a recent House Republican Leadership press conference, capturing a growing rallying message in the Republican Party, as the Trump administration and its GOP allies escalate an anti-communist campaign aimed at democratic-socialist primary victories nationwide.

President Trump has, to be sure, been out front on the issue, criticizing Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff during a speech last week in the senator's home state in which he also called his broader Democratic Party “communist," as Ossoff runs for reelection against Trump-backed GOP Rep. Mike Collins.

“Jon Ossoff and the Democrat communists want to let the Marxists into power, bankrupt your families, and leave you totally undefended with wide-open borders,” Trump also said about the top political fundraiser in the country and a top GOP target this election cycle, considering he's the only Democrat running in a state that Trump won in 2024.

Trump’s comments and the wider Republican warnings about communism come as the Democratic Socialists of America, a political and activist organization, endorses candidates and secures wins across the country, including recent victories in Colorado, Georgia, Kentucky, Los Angeles, New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C.

Caving to the far left

“You're seeing Democrats throughout, not only in New York but throughout the nation, really cave to the far left. These are individuals who have now hijacked the Democratic Party, and they try to cast themselves as something that they're frankly not,” New York Republican congressional candidate Mike LiPetri told the Just the News, No Noise show last week.

LiPetri argued that the DSA was using “propaganda” to control the public and “deceive the people through these headlines,” while forcing taxpayers to foot the bill for their “reckless spending.” 

Johnson warned in last week's House GOP press conference about the shifting ideological ground of politics in America. 

"Now, we are quite literally in a contest to determine whether we're going to maintain our status as the world's great superpower [...] as a constitutional republic, or we're going to tear that down to the foundation like the communist Democrats want to do," he said.

This election cycle, the only reported official Communist Party candidate is Brandon Daley, who is running for a seat in Georgia’s 2nd Congressional District. However, other past and present candidates this cycle have made previous references to communism. 

Graham Platner, the Democrat in the Maine Senate race who recently dropped out, once posted on the social media site Reddit, "I got older and became a communist." He later disavowed the posts and said he was never a communist.

In addition, Darializa Avila Chevalier, the New York progressive democratic socialist who this summer won her congressional primary, once made social media posts praising historical figures such as Vladimir Lenin. However, Chevalier distanced herself from the posts, stating they are years old and do not reflect who she is today. 

Leavitt: 'This is not your granddaddy’s Democrat Party'

During a June 29 interview on Fox & Friends, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also made the argument that the Democratic Party has shifted toward communism, which Trump has called a “mortal threat to American liberty.”  

“This is not your granddaddy’s Democrat Party," Leavitt said. "These are communists. The president is trying to call them that. They want to abolish private prisons, they want to abolish the police, they want to abolish private property."

Defining 'Democratic Socialism'

CNN, TIME Magazine, and AP News have meanwhile posted stories that appear to attempt to draw a line between traditional Marxist communism and the democratic socialist platform. 

A July 8 CNN story, which quotes experts and a DSA co-chair, lays out the argument that communism’s economic theories are not being practiced today, stating, “Even if hybrid capitalist economies like China and Russia have retained the authoritarian fist of their predecessors.”

Instead, "nearly 37 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall,” Republicans were turning to the “tactic of red-baiting,” akin to Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s targeting of alleged communist spies and sympathizers during the 1940s and 50s, the story continued. 

While traditional Marxist communism describes “a stateless, classless, moneyless society and common ownership of property and means of production,” the article said that democratic socialist platforms like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s are “comparable to democratic socialists in Europe,” calling for universal healthcare, public housing, and government intervention to set food and transport prices.

The DSA website says that “capitalism is a system designed by the owning class to exploit the rest of us,” and that it must be replaced with “democratic socialism,” calling for the collective ownership of energy production and transportation, Medicare for All, defunding the police and the Green New Deal. 

'Captured' by communists

Critics from within the movement say that the DSA has been captured by more radical factions, including communists. Former DSA member Jake Altman said on Fox News’ "Saturday in America" that the group has been "captured" by communists trying to push the Democratic Party further to the left, and that DSA members are not operating “in good faith.”

“Their organization has been captured,” Altman told Fox News. “One of my real concerns is that we see a lot of resistance to anti-communism within the DSA, even from the moderate wing of the DSA, and I think this is very, very dangerous.” 

The DSA did not respond to requests for comment for the story. 

The City Journal, published by the conservative think tank Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, reports that the majority of DSA’s governing board, the National Political Committee, openly identified with communist ideology. 

While the moderate Socialist Majority Caucus and the Green New Deal slate held an NPC majority from 2021 to 2023, a coalition of communist caucuses took control of the governing body by 2023, the journal said, a shift also tracked by InfluenceWatch, a project of the conservative Capital Research Center.

Vincent Lima, political committee chair of the Socialist Majority Caucus, told City Journal that the NPC was divided between the “mass politics” bloc, which focuses on building a socialist future through electoral politics and labor organizing, and the “sectarian” faction, who see the DSA as an opportunity for “the final crisis of capitalism to sweep a socialist party into power.”

Meanwhile, Republicans have escalated their messaging against communism, arguing that the socialist platform is a step toward communism. 

"They don't need little nicknames like the Democratic Socialists of America and these acronyms. Just tell the American people what you believe in – communism," said Rep. Lisa McClain, R-Mich., at the House GOP leaders' press conference last week. "And, of course, communism arrives wearing a face." 

She was joined by lawmaker Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., the daughter of a Cuban refugee, who directly compared Mamdani's platform such as "government-run supermarkets" to what occurred in communist Cuba. 

High Stakes for November

Trump has consistently raised communism as a threat in recent speeches, including at the NATO Summit on July 8, at Mount Rushmore on July 3, and at the National Mall during the “Salute to America” speech for July 4 celebrations. 

On the Democrat side, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., responded to primary victories by DSA-backed candidates by urging the party to unite after the primary season, reminding Democrats that “the enemy is Donald Trump and MAGA extremism.”

Christina Park is a reporter for Just the News. Follow her on X for more coverage.