In the weeks before a consequential midterm election, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer entered a national television studio and refused to accept the language his host offered him — insisting that what some call democratic socialism is, in truth, communism by another name. The exchange illuminates something older than any single campaign: the perennial contest over who gets to name a thing, and what power that naming confers. Ideology, like water, takes the shape of whatever vessel political urgency pours it into.
Emmer clashes with ABC's Karl over communist label for Democratic socialists
There's nothing Democratic about socialism.
Mark
So what's actually at stake in this argument about labels? Is Emmer just being rhetorical, or is there something real underneath?
Mimi
He's making a strategic choice about how to frame the midterms. If you can convince voters that Democratic socialists are actually communists, you've won half the battle before anyone even discusses policy.
Luke
But here's what we need to be careful about: Emmer says there are dozens of DSA-backed candidates running. That's true. But how many of them are actually calling themselves communists? The source doesn't name specific candidates beyond El-Sayed, and El-Sayed himself denies being a socialist.
Mark
So the label is the whole fight?
Mimi
Exactly. Karl's point was that there aren't communists on the ballot—there are people who identify as democratic socialists. Emmer's saying that's a distinction without a difference, that the label is a disguise.
Luke
Which is an argument, not a fact. We know what these candidates call themselves. We know what Emmer calls them. What we don't know is whether voters actually care about the distinction, or whether Emmer's framing will stick.
Mark
And the media criticism—is that fair? Did outlets really cover Biden's gas prices differently than Trump's?
Luke
Emmer gives specific numbers: $5 average under Biden, $4 under Trump, grocery inflation at 13 percent versus 2 percent. Those are testable claims. But the source doesn't verify them, and it doesn't say whether Karl or ABC News disputed them in the moment.
Mimi
Which is telling. Karl didn't push back on the numbers. He pushed back on the communist label.
Mark
So they were talking past each other.
Mimi
Completely. Emmer wanted to talk about policy costs and media bias. Karl wanted to talk about whether the label was accurate. Neither one budged.
Der Puls
- Emmer arrived on ABC with a prepared offensive, pivoting from gas prices to a blunt declaration — 'It's not enough to vote for communists' — before the interview had found its footing.
- Host Jon Karl pushed back with a laugh and a fact: most Democrats don't call themselves communists, and few who do are actually on the ballot — but Emmer refused the correction entirely.
- The real fight was over language itself: Emmer argued that accepting the term 'democratic socialist' meant surrendering to a branding strategy, and demanded viewers look past the label to the platform.
- Emmer broadened his attack to the media, accusing journalists of applying different standards to inflation and gas prices depending on which party held the White House.
- With dozens of DSA-backed candidates on midterm ballots, the ideological framing war Emmer is waging is not merely rhetorical — it is a coordinated Republican strategy to define the opposition before voters can define them.
In the weeks before a consequential midterm election, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer entered a national television studio and refused to accept the language his host offered him — insisting that what some call democratic socialism is, in truth, communism by another name. The exchange illuminates something older than any single campaign: the perennial contest over who gets to name a thing, and what power that naming confers. Ideology, like water, takes the shape of whatever vessel political urgency pours it into.
On a Sunday morning, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer sat across from ABC's Jon Karl and refused to play by the usual rules of a political interview. He opened by calling gas prices under Biden entirely unacceptable, then pivoted without warning: the real problem, he said, was that Americans were being asked to vote for communists.
Karl offered a gentle correction — most Democrats wouldn't use that word, and genuine communists were hardly flooding the ballot. Emmer dismissed it. When Karl tried to acknowledge the presence of democratic socialists and move on, Emmer stopped him there too. The label itself, he argued, was a trick. For a century, he said, the left had asked to be called progressives when they were socialists; now they had moved further still. 'They are now communists and Marxists,' he said, pointing to the Democratic Socialists of America platform as evidence.
To make his case concrete, Emmer listed the policies he attributed to these candidates: defunding police and prisons, government-only healthcare, and the Green New Deal — which he claimed would cost each American family $355,000. These were not abstractions to him; they were the substance beneath the softened branding.
The confrontation extended beyond ideology. Emmer accused the press, Karl included, of covering economic pain selectively — harsh scrutiny under Biden, silence under Trump. 'The American people don't get the truth,' he said plainly.
It was not a spontaneous outburst. A week earlier, Emmer had told Fox News Digital the same thing, naming specific candidates he considered communists and anarchists. With dozens of DSA-backed candidates running in these midterms, the battle over what to call them had become as consequential as any policy debate — and Emmer had made clear he intended to fight it on his own terms.
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer walked into an ABC News studio on a Sunday morning with a message he was determined to deliver, and when host Jon Karl tried to steer the conversation elsewhere, Emmer held his ground. The exchange began innocuously enough—Emmer acknowledged that Republicans needed to address gas prices before the midterm elections, calling $4 per gallon for gasoline and $6 for diesel "entirely unacceptable." But then he pivoted. "It's not enough to vote for communists," he said.
Karl, the ABC host, responded with a light laugh and a straightforward pushback: most Democrats wouldn't describe themselves that way, he noted, and besides, there simply weren't many communists actually running for office in these midterms. Emmer rejected the premise entirely. "Well you're wrong, they are communists," he said, cutting off any attempt at a graceful exit from the topic.
When Karl tried to acknowledge that yes, there were some Democratic socialists on the ballot and then move forward to something else, Emmer refused to let it drop. He argued that by using the term "Democratic socialists," Karl was playing into the language game these candidates wanted him to play. "There's nothing Democratic about socialism," Emmer said. He traced a rhetorical history: for a century, he claimed, the left had wanted people to call them progressives when they were actually socialists, and now they'd moved further left still. "They are now communists and Marxists," he said, directing Karl to look at the Democratic Socialists of America platform.
Emmer then rattled off a list of policy positions he attributed to these candidates: defunding police, defunding prisons, implementing government-only healthcare, and pursuing the Green New Deal, which he said would cost every American family an additional $355,000. These, he suggested, were the real issues worth discussing, not semantic quibbles about labels.
The confrontation was part of a larger argument Emmer had been making. Earlier in the same interview, he'd criticized the mainstream media—pointedly including Karl and his colleagues—for covering inflation and gas prices inconsistently depending on which president was in office. Under Joe Biden, Emmer said, the average gas price had exceeded $5 a gallon and grocery inflation had climbed into double digits. Under Donald Trump, he claimed, gas had fallen to around $4 and grocery inflation had dropped to 2 percent. "You guys don't report this stuff," Emmer told Karl. "The American people don't get the truth from the people that are reporting it."
This wasn't Emmer's first time making such arguments. A week earlier, he'd told Fox News Digital that the far-left wing of the Democratic Party consisted of "communists, Marxists and anarchists." He'd singled out Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who has denied being a socialist, and criticized him for various statements Emmer found objectionable, including comments about the NFL and associations Emmer deemed anti-American.
The timing of Emmer's rhetoric reflected a concrete political reality: dozens of Democratic Socialists of America-backed candidates were running in these midterms, making the question of how to characterize them and their ideology a genuine battleground in campaign messaging. For Republicans, the strategy was clear—push the ideological label as far left as possible. For Democrats and their media allies, the instinct was to resist the reframing, to insist on the distinction between democratic socialism and communism, and to move the conversation toward other terrain. Emmer's appearance on ABC News showed how intractable that divide had become.
Bemerkenswerte Zitate
There's nothing Democratic about socialism. For 100 years, they wanted us to call them progressives, when in fact they were socialists. They are now communists and Marxists.— Tom Emmer, House Majority Whip
I think most Democrats would say they're not communists. There aren't a lot of communists on the ballot in these midterms.— Jon Karl, ABC News
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