Politics

Documentation, observers say Trump ‘communist’ accusation against Michael Moore not too far off

John Rossomando Contributor
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Donald Trump’s off-the-cuff remark labeling activist filmmaker Michael Moore as a “communist” during an appearance on Fox News earlier this month may not be too far off, according to observers and documentation.

The Donald made the comment responding to an accusation from Moore that Wisconsin and the rest of the nation were not broke because the wealthy were not fairly distributing their money.

“This is like in other words: ‘Everybody’s cash is everybody’s cash’. It’s sort of interesting. Castro in the good old days used to say the exact same thing, right?” Trump asked.

Evidence shows Moore has a long history of pro-communist sympathies dating back to at least 1986 when he was fired from Mother Jones magazine for refusing to publish an article by Paul Berman that was critical of the communist Sandinistas’ human rights record.

“The article was flatly wrong and the worst kind of patronizing bullshit,” Moore was quoted by Alexander Cockburn as saying in an article that appeared in The Nation magazine that same year.

Moore even expressed admiration for Castro in his 1997 book “Downsize This.”

The filmmaker also spoke at the 1998 Socialist Scholars Conference at the City University of New York, which was sponsored by the university’s chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. The theme of the conference that year was “One Hundred and Fifty Years After The Communist Manifesto.”

An October 2002 capture of Moore’s website from Archive.org shows him recommending links to the Democratic Socialists of America and Solidarity: A Socialist Feminist Organization.

“Michael Moore is a communist Leninist, Stalinist,” political commentator and former leftist David Horowitz told The Daily Caller, noting the Mother Jones Sandinista episode.

But Horowitz’s colleague and fellow former communist-turned-conservative activist Ron Radosh disagrees with Horowitz’s description of Moore as a “communist”, saying the filmmaker is more of a garden variety ‘60s neo-Marxist radical than a Marxist-Leninist in the mold of the Communist Party USA.

“He is anti-American, pro any activism, and a demagogue,” Radosh told TheDC. “CPrs [communist party members] were shrewder and more ideological, adhering to a line. Moore knows nothing about Marxism and couldn’t care less about it.

“I would call him a far-left extremist and radical, who follows the most extreme trajectory of the 60’s New Left.”

Although Radosh declines to describe Moore as a communist, he said the DSA and CPUSA have grown closer together ideologically in recent years.

Moore’s spokespeople did not respond to a request for comments.