McCarthyism Never Really Died. MAGA Is Just Giving It a Fresh Coat of Paint. MAGA didn’t invent a new political weapon—it dusted off Joseph McCarthy’s playbook, swapped the labels, and started using "communist" as an all-purpose accusation against anyone who disagrees. Posted on Jul 5, 2026 | The Enemy Within
‘Communist menace in our land’: Trump’s July 4 rallying cry to America In a Mount Rushmore speech meant to mark America's 250th anniversary, Trump veered into Cold War-style rhetoric, branding immigrants and political opponents a "communist menace" and calling communism "the enemy" of the Constitution and of July 4, 1776 itself. Posted on Jul 4, 2026 | MSNBC
Donald Trump Consoles Himself With ‘Ridiculous’ Pardon Rampage Trump admitted pardoning six people "persecuted" by the Biden administration for "fixing their car"—Clean Air Act violations—sounds "ridiculous," and granted the clemency anyway. Posted on Jul 3, 2026 | The Daily Beast
Former CIA Director John Brennan Sues Trump Over Shoddy Revenge Probe Brennan is suing the Trump administration to force it to preserve records from the vindictive investigation into him, warning the Justice Department otherwise won't keep evidence he'd need to fight back. Posted on Jul 1, 2026 | The New Republic
GOP reboots the Red Scare as young Democrats embrace socialism Seventy years after the original Red Scare, Trump and Republicans are reviving fear of "godless communists" ahead of the midterms, branding democratic socialists as communists even though historians say it's a long-used tactic to paint the left as more extreme than it is. Posted on Jun 30, 2026 | Axios
The Reflecting Pool Has Driven the President Insane Trump's unsubstantiated claims that knife-wielding vandals and algae-planting saboteurs sabotaged the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool -- rather than accept mundane explanations like a botched lining job -- reveal a conspiracy-driven refusal to accept blame that says more about his psychology than about the pool. Posted on Jun 27, 2026 | Paul Waldman
The SAVE Act Comes for Everything Trump canceled the signing of a broadly bipartisan housing bill, one that passed 358-32 in the House and 85-5 in the Senate, refusing to act on any congressional business until the SAVE Act, a voter-suppression measure nowhere near the 60 votes it needs, reaches his desk first. Posted on Jun 25, 2026 | The American Prospect
McCarthyism With WiFi: Trump’s New Red Scare Goes After Streamers, Activists, and Dissent A modern update on the McCarthyism comparison, arguing that today's crackdown on streamers, online activists, and dissenting voices follows the same playbook as the original Red Scare, just carried out through digital platforms. Posted on May 24, 2026 | Daily Kos
How Many People Have Been Killed by ICE and Border Patrol? After Border Patrol agents killed Alex Pretti on a Minneapolis street -- an initial "domestic terrorist" narrative that unraveled once bystander video contradicted it -- The Marshall Project tallies the broader pattern of fatal shootings by federal immigration agents under Trump's second term. Posted on Jan 26, 2026 | The Marshall Project
Unfettered and Unaccountable: How Trump Is Building a Violent, Shadowy Federal Police Force Unmasking the secret police operating under the banner of national security. Posted on Oct 17, 2025 | ProPublica