Full Breakdown
Trump’s Anti-Communist Rhetoric Resonates with South Carolina GOP Voters
8/29/2026, 9:09:51 PM
Background & Context
A special Republican runoff in South Carolina selected the party’s U.S. Senate nominee after the sudden death of Senator Lindsey Graham. President Donald Trump visited the state days before the Tuesday vote, urging voters to back Darline Graham—Lindsey Graham’s sister—whom he framed as a victory for his agenda. At a rally in Myrtle Beach, Trump declared, “So the Democrats hate our country.
Voter Sentiment in South Carolina
Interviews with voters at polling sites reveal that anti-communist messaging is a salient concern. Charles Rogers, leaving a school polling place, expressed dislike for the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). These remarks illustrate that Trump’s anti-communist framing is reaching rank-and-file Republicans in the Deep South.
Media Amplification and Data
Law professor Brian Leiter notes that Fox News and Trump “work in tandem” to amplify red-baiting rhetoric. A search of the Internet Archive’s database of Fox News transcripts found the word “socialist” or “socialism” mentioned almost 6,000 times and the word “communist” more than 1,700 times since 1 January, with spikes in May and a five-fold increase in August.
Official Statements & Responses
President Trump’s repeated labeling of Democrats as “communists” forms the centerpiece of his campaign’s cultural narrative, positioning opposition as a threat to American patriotism. Leiter, director of the Center for Law, Philosophy & Human Values at the University of Chicago, characterizes the partnership between Trump and Fox News as mutually reinforcing and rooted in a historical tradition of red-baiting that dates back to Roy Cohn’s counsel to Senator Joseph McCarthy.
Verbatim Quotes
- “So the Democrats hate our country. They’re communists,” — Donald Trump
- “We want to maintain our freedoms,” — Donna
- “Trump and Fox News work in tandem on these things. They’re mutually reinforcing,” — Brian Leiter
- “I gather they have been doing a lot on democratic socialism on the theory that it’ll help the Republican party,” — Brian Leiter
