Former President Donald Trump on Jan. 31 lamented that the United States resembles a communist nation under his successor, pointing to rampant inflation, diminishing freedoms, and the porous U.S.–Mexico border.
“Why would they want to have a weak military? Why would they want to have high interest rates and higher taxes? And why would they want to have no border?” Trump said. “Why would they want to have no voter ID as an example, or sanctuary cities that take care of criminals? You go through all of these things, defund the police? Why do they want to defund our police?”
“It can’t be possibly good,” Trump said. “So either they’re stupid, which I don’t think they are, or they hate our country.”
Trump campaigned in 2020 by presenting the choice between him and then-candidate Joe Biden as one between freedom and communism. The former president never conceded the 2020 election in which the Democrats obtained control of the White House and both chambers of Congress.
Though Biden has rejected the socialist label, his administration has not been able to untether itself from a confluence of crises Americans often associate with socialist and communist regimes. Inflation has remained at the highest level in decades, with average gas prices at the highest point since September 2014. Though there is no evidence of a food shortage, a supply chain logjam has led to empty shelves in some supermarkets and shortages in fertilizer, truck parts, and new cars, among other goods. Meanwhile, many Americans associate Biden’s vaccine and mask mandates as an erosion of freedom.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki has said that prices are rising because more Americans are working and, as a result, driving up demand by buying more goods. On more than one occasion, Psaki has blamed the pandemic, which started a year before Biden’s inauguration, for the supply chain crunch and inflation.
The White House has defended vaccine and mask mandates as a necessary measure to stop the spread of COVID-19. The disease has claimed more lives in the United States under Biden than it did under Trump, despite Biden’s mandates for masks for interstate travel and vaccines for government employees and healthcare workers.
“It’s the saddest period of time that I’ve ever seen for our country. We had everything so good,” Trump told The Epoch Times.
“This is the saddest time for our country and I think the most embarrassing time for our country,” the former president added. “The borders are a disaster with millions of people coming in. Everything’s a disaster. There’s nothing good—inflation.”
Trump’s opposition to communism and socialism goes far beyond campaign rhetoric. As president, he took on communist and socialist regimes abroad and worked to block the advance of socialist elements domestically. In his 2019 State of the Union speech, Trump said, “America will never be a socialist country.”
Trump imposed unprecedented tariffs on China in a bid to force the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to cease its widespread campaign to steal intellectual property from U.S. companies and desist from unfair trade practices. He imposed restrictions to weaken the communist regime in Cuba and recognized the opposition leader in Venezuela after the once-wealthy nation’s legislature declared its socialist dictator illegitimate.
