The Red Menace

By Jessie Seigel / February 26, 2025

The Republican party has long made capital out of its staunch anti-communist stance in alleged protection of American democracy. Its use of anti-communist rhetoric extends at least as far back as the persecutions conducted by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950’s. Those rabid Republican witch-hunters made liberal use of the slogan, “Better dead than red”—red being the color then associated with Communist movements.

That same party now stands silent—when not outrightly supporting—the Trump regime’s ever-evolving partnership with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and other totalitarian dictatorships. (How appropriate that red is now the color of MAGA.)

Some in the media have expressed amazement at the apparent sea change. But the Republican shift to wholesale support of Putin, and the use of the old McCarthy tactics to further it—enemies lists, threatened investigations and prosecutions, etc.—demonstrates that defending democracy or American interests was never the goal. Domination through terror was always their real object, even in the 1950s.

Republican leaders have now entirely dropped the pretense of defending democracy. Now, they are the red menace.

President Trump, in league with his Republican-controlled congress, is dismantling the United States’ democracy. While the New York Times has referred to Trump’s actions as “reshaping” the government, that term is a euphemistic misnomer. Trump and his Republican backers are very deliberately sabotaging the United States’ government, the nation’s legal system, and the ability to defend our country from any peril, domestic or foreign.

Trump's every action in the weeks since he took power has been calculated to weaken the nation.  

Illegally firing thousands upon thousands of federal workers at a variety of agencies is geared to create chaos and confusion, destroy the ability of agencies to do the work citizens expect from them, and create an economic depression affecting the entire country.

Decimating the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the Center for Disease Control (CDC), and placing the vaccine denier Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in charge of the nation’s health is calculated to expose us all to coming pandemics as bad or worse than Covid. Not to mention death by diseases that currently could be controlled or prevented through existing vaccines.

Firing Federal Aviation Administration employees has already compromised the safety of air travel, resulting in crashes and deaths.

Firing IRS employees—during tax season, no less—is designed to create widespread havoc, to delay or prevent citizens from receiving refunds, and to hamper audits of the ultra-wealthy.

In addition, Trump is illegally using the private billionaire tech-magnate Elon Musk and his programmer minions to fire Civil Service employees and access the private data of every person in the country. --As if there were not already enough concerns about identify theft, let alone a legitimate fear that Musk and his hackers will steal and manipulate that data for their own nefarious purposes.

Musk has not been nominated, vetted, or confirmed by the Senate for any government post. Nor has Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) been created by Congress. Neither DOGE nor Musk have any legal standing to invade agencies, lock out employees, or invade citizens’ records. Trump and Musk are only getting away with this crime because the Republican controlled congress refuses to take action, and the courts are too slow to stop it.

In addition, Trump has just fired the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General Charles Q. Brown, and the army, navy, and air force judge advocate generals. As The New Republic has put it, this action is clearing the way for the Trump regime to “get away with whatever it wants.” Of the firing of judge advocate generals, Georgetown law professor Rosa Brooks posted on X: “It’s what you do when you’re planning to break the law: you get rid of any lawyers who might try to slow you down.” 

With the Senate's collaboration, Trump has also installed, as Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard—who parrots Putin’s every talking point. He installed, as Director of the FBI, Kash Patel—who took $25,000 to participate in a Russian anti-American propaganda series broadcast by Tucker Carlson. And of course, Trump installed Pete Hegseth—a Fox weekend host with no credentials other than willingness to be Trump’s lapdog—as United States Secretary of Defense.

At a minimum, the Senate should have investigated Gabbard, Patel, and Hegseth for un-american activities (to borrow Joe McCarthy’s phrase where it actually fits). Instead, Republicans confirmed them, thus colluding in Trump's calculated efforts to weaken the United States of America to the benefit of Vladimir Putin and other autocrats.

There’s a word that encompasses all of the Trump administraton's actions taken together. That word is "coup."

Former U.S. attorney and MSNBC contributor Joyce Vance gets this. In her February 12 newsletter, Civil Discourse, she wrote, “… we are living through the quietest of coups. If we don’t start calling it what it is and putting a stop to it, it stands a fair chance of succeeding. The lawyers are hard at work, but that will not be enough alone. They are holding the ground until the public catches up. It would be nice if Congress and the Supreme Court did their jobs too. But for starters, let’s call the coup a coup—while we still can.”  Vance added, “My question is, who voted for a coup? And if we didn’t, why are we staying silent (or being excessively polite about it) now?”

Unfortunately, much of the mainstream media continues to refuse to call it that. And they keep making excuses for Republican politicians' capitulation--claiming that they are “afraid,” whether for their seats in the House and Senate or for their lives. They also continue to note, as exculpatory, that some representatives and senators express dissent in private.

It’s far past time to stop letting these politicians off the hook. Private dissent is worthless. Only public dissent has meaning. Are these politicians afraid for their lives? –then quit politics. Are they afraid of being primaried? Too bad. They have no right to their office in a democratic state if they won’t stand up for democracy.

Once these feeble excuses are shredded, the true reason behind their actions lies revealed. They are going along to get along—to accrue power and money and remain part of the so-called Republican club that benefits them. Whether by active support or acquiescence, they are willing participants in Trump’s coup.

At this point, even the rare public dissent by Republicans must be considered a mechanism to hide their participation in the coup if it is not accompanied by action.

As an example, Republican Senator Thom Tillis, speaking on the Senate floor, recently said: “Whoever believes that there is any space for Vladimir Putin in the future of a stable globe better go to Ukraine. They better go to Europe; they better invest the time to understand that this man is a cancer and the greatest threat to democracy in my lifetime.” Tillis argued the U.S. should fight the expansion of Russia’s land grabs at every turn.

But what did Tillis do? He voted to confirm Gabbard, Patel, and Hegseth. Gabbard and Patel are supporting Putin, and Hegseth is busy dividing us from our allies who oppose Putin.

Many Democratic leaders are speaking out and participating in public protests against the attacks on the various agencies. Some senators are employing what delaying tactics they can concerning reactionary legislation. There are groups bringing lawsuits. And citizens are protesting at rallies and ranting at town halls all around the country.

But there will not be the possibility of an election to permit change for at least two years. And there is little indication that those in power will, in the meantime, be responsive to the growing groundswell of opposition. Rather, there is an effort underway to further disenfranchise voters. At the rate the Trump cabal is treading on democratic process and law, it cannot be assumed that there will be a fair midterm election in 2026--or an election at all.

The blueprint for Trump’s autocratic moves was set out in Project 2025. The details of that plan were public for almost a year before the 2024 election. Among other things, it provided for the firing of all civil servants and their replacement with a list of Trump loyalists that Project 2025 was compiling.

Those dedicated to preserving democracy should have known that if Trump took power, Project 2025 would be implemented, and should have been preparing tactics to obstruct that eventuality. Instead, Democratic leaders appear to have hoped for the best and failed to prepare for the worst. Even now, most of them appear reactive when they need to become proactive. That is, they are still only responding to Trump’s nefarious actions after they occur and in very conventional ways. These leaders need to anticipate the many devious manipulations the Republican leadership could put in play. The Democrats need to think like Machiavelli, not like a near-sighted Mr. Magoo.

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