Communism: Carl Responds! July 7, 2026July 7, 2026 Trump’s current line, which Carl dutifully repeats, is that Democrats are communists. (Also: deranged radical lunatics.) Yesterday, I asked whether Carl even knows what a communist is. He began his response by quoting a Republican congresswoman, Nicole Malliotakis, who says “Socialism is communism light — the first step to communism.” And yet when you think about it, socialism is actually what prevents communism. Cuba, Russia, China — they did not gradually morph from ever-increasing socialism to communism — they exploded via revolution from extreme wealth inequality. Was czarist Russia socialist? Anything but. Was pre-revolutionary China socialist? No — and it banned the communist party. Was pre-revolutionary Cuba socialist? Check your AI. Mine opines: Wealth inequality in Batista’s Cuba was extreme — among the worst in the Western Hemisphere — and one of the core drivers of the Cuban Revolution. The country had a small, ultra‑rich elite concentrated in Havana and a vast rural population living in deep poverty. Extreme wealth inequality, not socialism, is what precedes communist revolutions — or else, in the alternative, precedes “populist” takeovers like Hitler’s or Mussolini’s or Trump’s. (I know it irks to keep repeating it, but for years Trump – no avid reader – kept My New Order, a book of Hitler’s speeches, by his bedside. I have a copy. He needed only to read the foreword and the introduction, by western journalists, to understand how Hitler was elected.) It’s not socialism that precedes communism or fascism; it’s extreme inequality — where one guy’s worth a trillion dollars while those, like me and most Democrats, who want to raise the $7.25 minimum wage are called communists. Where the ruler enriches his family by billions his first year back in office and guts the Internal Revenue Service of the staff needed to collect taxes due from the billionaires and large corporations whose tax rates he’s cut. Socialism, by preventing such grotesque inequality, prevents communism. And socialism, it’s always worth noting, is a matter of degree. The U.S., with its publicly owned and run roads and schools and police and fire departments, its progressive income tax and social safety net, is socialist. The rest of the developed world goes further, especially when it comes to health care, but it’s only, as I say, a matter of degree. MAGA Americans want Social Security and Medicare and affordable health care (be patient: after ten years of diligent thinking, Trump has come up with a secret concept of a plan). They want public roads, public parks, unemployment insurance and clean water. They just hate the elites and see the press as “the enemy of the people” because Trump has persuaded them it’s the elites and the press — and the radical deranged lunatic communist Democrats like Clinton, Obama, and Biden — who are to blame for their difficulty in getting ahead. When in fact the blame for that, if one looks at it objectively, falls mostly on Trump and the Republican elites. (If you missed it yesterday: Things Republicans gave us and things they’ve opposed — 90 angry seconds.) Carl does go on to cut and paste (from someplace) the communist agenda: COMMUNIST AGENDA! Abolition of private property in land, diverting all rents to public use A heavy progressive income tax to flatten wealth distribution. Abolition of all rights of inheritance to stop generational wealth accumulation. Confiscation of property belonging to emigrants and political rebels. Centralization of credit and banking into a single national bank with an absolute state monopoly. Centralization of all communication and transport infrastructure into state hands. Expansion of state-owned factories, instruments of production, and central planning for agriculture. Equal liability of all to work, including the establishment of industrial armies. Combination of agriculture and manufacturing to gradually blur the distinction between town and country. Free public education for all children and the elimination of traditional child factory labor. OK. Does he think Democrats want to abolish private property? Does he think the much more steeply progressive income tax rates, and estate tax rates, under Eisenhower and Nixon (among others) were communist? Does he think the Democratic platform includes abolishing inheritance or dissolving all private banks or state takeover of all communication and transport? If he doesn’t think these things — and how can he? — then by cutting and pasting that, he’s proving that Trump is WRONG to be calling Democrats a communist threat, and that he, too, is wrong for slinging the epithet. I’ll admit that the last line on that communist agenda is one I like — “free public education for all children and the elimination of traditional child factory labor.” But doesn’t Carl? Don’t MAGA Republicans? Communism is nice in theory but a disaster in reality, as it defies human nature and always leads to tyranny. I am for well-regulated capitalism. Speaking of which: RNGE Suggested here at 15 cents, the stock traded as high as 75 cents yesterday on news that Range Impact and C2 Ventures Launch AI Infrastructure Platform on 9,000-Acre West Virginia Energy Corridor . . . before falling back to close at 65 cents. I’m holding all mine. John L——: “I have to ask if Carl’s last name is ‘L——.’ Because that would be my hateful old man whom I haven’t spoken to in over 16 years. Every time I see one of your posts about Carl, I start wondering.” → No, it’s a different Carl. Under Trump’s spell, there are many. THE WORLD CUP As you know, we got knocked out by Belgium. STLB: “Someone should point out to Trump that the USA Soccer player he intervened with FIFA to let play against Belgium is a birthright citizen whose mother was so pregnant that a stewardess refused to let board a plane home.” → Ironic, no? Everything Trump Touches Dies. (See also: the Knicks’ 13-game winning streak.) PLATNER Must resign. EPSTEIN Any news?