Trump leans on 'communist' messaging as economic angst drives Democrats
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"And then you add on top of that that his mentor was Roy Cohn. And Roy Cohn was that lawyer, fixer who helped hunt communists under [former Senator Joe] McCarthy," Troy said. "He worked on the McCarthy staff."

McCarthy's harsh tactics, though, caused political blowback.

Now, Trump has ramped up the anti-communism rhetoric after primary wins by democratic socialist candidates in New York and Colorado.

He has also painted it as a threat to religion.

"They will close your churches in this country if they go communist, and they're trying to," Trump said at the Faith & Freedom Coalition conference last month. "They will kill your people and that's what they're about. They want to end religion."

Jennifer Stromer-Galley, who studies political messaging at Syracuse University, says Trump is conflating democratic socialists with communism in order to energize his base.

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