On September 24, 2019, President Donald Trump addressed the United Nations General Assembly and, while decrying autocrats in the southern hemisphere, declaimed, “socialism and communism are not about justice, they are not about equality, they are not about lifting up the poor, and they are certainly not about the good of the nation. Socialism and communism are about one thing only: power for the ruling class.”
Now, in a second term in which he has threatened New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani with arrest and deportation — “As President of the United States, I’m not going to let this Communist Lunatic destroy New York. Rest assured, I hold all the levers, and have all the cards,” he yawped on Truth Social — POTUS is no longer attempting to veil his dictatorial desires, revealing that Trump 1.0 can, in retrospect, clearly be seen as doth protesting way too much.
But this is not the first time right-wingers have used the bogeyman of communism to tar political opponents, as demonstrated in The New York Historical’s exhibition Blacklisted: An American Story, which surveys the Red Scare and the blacklisting of Hollywood writers, actors, and directors in mid-20th-century America.
History is rhyming like a gong these days.
If you think huge law firms, immensely wealthy colleges, and gargantuan media conglomerates caving to the bullying tactics of powerful politicians is something new under Trump 2.0, this show might give you pause, bringing to mind John Garfield, a popular actor who was born in a Rivington Street tenement in 1913. Garfield specialized in portraying righteous rebels and working-class stalwarts. When his liberal politics landed him before the U.S. House Committee on Un-American Activities, his career was effectively ended in a Hollywood where studio execs were mainly concerned about their profits being affected by a culture war launched by that era’s version of QAnon. Garfield, tough in life — he’d boxed at a Bronx gym growing up — as well as onscreen, was known for his progressive ideals, and when called before HUAC he refused to name names of anyone he knew who was associated with communism in America. Many friends and family members believed that his having had scarlet fever in his youth, added to the stress of the committee hearings, contributed to Garfield’s death from a heart attack when he was only 39 years old.
The NYH exhibit also delves into how racism played a large part in the witch hunts of those days, noting in press materials, “Social conditions of the 1930s and 1940s drove many artists and writers to embrace radical politics through groups like the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). During this period, the CPUSA was the only interracial political party and the only party with a platform supporting racial equality and self-determination for Black communities. A 1932 lithograph on view — ‘Equal Rights for Negroes Everywhere! Vote Communist’ — depicts the interracial presidential ticket of William Z. Foster and James W. Ford, the first African American to run for vice president in the 20th century. Though this interwar period is considered the ‘heyday of American Communism,’ CPUSA’s official membership never exceeded 100,000. The Red Scare would decimate the CPUSA and shatter many progressive coalitions accused of having Communist ties.”
While Trump often complains of “witch hunts” — around previous investigations into his anti-democracy policies, ranging from rigging elections and stealing classified materials to fomenting insurrection — one wonders if he’s ever seen one of the definitive works on the subject. A Playbill for Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is included in the NYH exhibition; the curators note that the evergreen play “opened on Broadway on January 22, 1953. Audiences interpreted the play’s setting during the Salem Witch Trials and its focus on the devastating role of rumor and accusation as a searing commentary on HUAC and the widespread panic during the Red Scare. The Crucible swept the theater awards for the season, including the Tony Award for Best Play of 1953.”
Mark Twain is reputed to have said, “History never repeats itself but it rhymes.” Blacklisted: An American Story includes a publication that attacked an earlier version of the Red Scare, just after World War I, entitled Deportation, Its Meaning and Menace. Written by Emma Goldman and her fellow anarchist revolutionary (and lover) Alexander Berkman, the pamphlet denounces the practice of deporting social and political dissidents. The couple was eventually deported themselves, back to their native Russia, where they were appalled by the excesses of the Bolsheviks, and departed: “we have come to the conclusion that we can do nothing here. And as we can not keep up a life of inactivity much longer we have decided to leave.” This started them on a peripatetic life of political agitation throughout Europe and Canada. Goldman was eventually allowed a short visit in order to lecture in the U.S., but only on the subjects of drama and her own life experiences, excepting her political activities.
History is rhyming like a gong these days, and this exhibition reminds us that democracy must constantly guard against fascism and authoritarianism or it might just end, to paraphrase the poet, not with the bang of 250 Independence Days but with the whimper of craven corporate profits uber alles. ❖
Blacklisted: An American Story
The New York Historical
170 Central Park West
Through October 19.