Saturday evening, I went to a bar in downtown Sarasota. As soon as I sat down, the guy sitting next to me saw my Kamala hat. He immediately launched into a diatribe:
"She's a COMMUNIST! She HATES OUR COUNTRY!! *YOU* must HATE our country!!!"
I just smiled and nodded, saying "Oh, really?!" and looking plaintively at the bartender, who looked on somewhat alarmed.
The guy finished his spiel, got up, and walked out. The bartender (who was new) came over and said "I'm sorry!" I said, "Thank you, but it's not your fault. I guess it's my fault for wearing this hat in public."
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But Kamala Harris is not a communist.
A communist believes that the state (or the people) should own the means of production. Communist countries typically nationalize businesses and limit the ability of individuals or groups to engage in private activities or to choose their own ways of life.
As part of the typically-forcible take-over of countries by communist groups, often involving coups by segments of the military, individuals are often driven from their homes, exiled, imprisoned, or killed, all in the name of a vision of collective cooperation for the greater good. (Of course, not all authoritarian governments are communist, but that's another matter.)
Americans have been afraid of socialism (and its cousin, communism) since at least the 1840s, when a series of labor strikes and armed rebellions wracked the countries of Europe, fueled by both the remants of feudalism and the excesses of capitalism. Fears of these movements--as well as the action of labor movements across the country--caused the U.S. to severely limit immigration and, eventually, to regulate industries and build a social safety net (including Social Security and Medicaid).
But fears of communism have continued, spiked by fears of the Soviet Union, mainland China, and, more recently, Norh Korea, North Vietnam, Cuba, and Venezuela. American children are taught to fear (and to hate) communism as a direct challenge to our commitment to "free enterprise."
During the 1940s and 1950s, fear of communism (as part of the so-called "Red Scare") led some Americans to call for public investigations of communist party activity, including public pledges of fealty to the United States. The excesses of these anti-communist activities caused many Americans to call for the public shaming of the most vocal anti-communists, of whom the most famous was Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. (See https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/investigations/mccarthy-hearings/have-you-no-sense-of-decency.htm.)
More recently, Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union the "Evil Empire," not only because of its communist ideology, but because of its attempts to spread this ideology around the world. Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida, has signed legislation specifically mandating K-12 curriculums describing "the evils of communism" and preparing "students to withstand indoctrination on Communism at colleges and universities." These actions can be seen as tactics in an ongoing culture war in which the "good guys" (American supporters of "free enterprise") must vanquish the enemies of America (the communists).
The fear of communism among Americans has waxed and waned over the past 185 years. But it never subsides for long. Communism continually re-emerges as a boogeyman, especially useful to politicians on the right who seek to scare Americans away from more liberal or left-leaning candidates.
But it's actually extremely rare in the United States to have politicians run for higher office who proclaim allegiance to communism as an ideology. Even Bernie Sanders--one of the most liberal U.S. Senators of all times--specifically disavows communism, saying that any transfer of wealth or power from the rich to the poor should proceed by "political revolution," not violent overthrow.
But because Sanders advocates for "Medicare for All," which amounts to a nationalized health-care system, and because he has said that important sectors of the US economy (like energy) should be creating profits "for the people," and because in his younger days he had praise for the communist governments of Cuba and Nicaragua, it is fairly easy to suggest that Sanders is secretly a communist. (https://www.hoover.org/research/how-socialist-bernie-sanders)
To those who oppose the presidential bid of Kamala Harris, it is similarly easy to conflate her liberal views with communism. Like Sanders, Harris has also expressed support for Medicare for All. But Kamala is not nearly as liberal as Sanders. She has not praised communist countries and has never called for the nationalization of other industries besides health care.
But never mind these subtle differences. In today's America, "communist" has become short-hand for "liberal." The claim that Kamala is a communist isn't intended as a factual or historical statement. It's pure rhetoric, designed to inflame partisanship in a certain type of American.
Because the fear of communism has been an undercurrent of anti-liberalism in the US for generations, the word itself is inflammatory: used specifically because it is a trigger for many. The soil among some is quite fertile: plant the seed, and it will grow, resulting (they hope) in anger directed at Democrats or so-called RINOs that motivates people to support self-styled anti-communists: not rationally, but reflexively, like the angry man at the bar who has been programmed to believe that anyone who supports a more liberal person for higher office is, ergo, a communist.
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