Why Republicans Say “CCP” Instead of Just “China”

While Republicans remain profoundly ignorant on matters of policy, ethics and basic human rights, they have stayed masters of the strategic use of language. Every week, I see examples of the media, and sometimes even Democrats, accepting right wing language choices and thereby, often inadvertently, advancing GOP messaging.

I will periodically call out these language games in the hopes of raising awareness so that we too can learn to consciously employ the words that support our messages, not theirs. Which brings me to today’s topic…

I had to chuckle when I heard that the Republican US House had created a “Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party.”  To be sure, competition between the US and China, of all kinds, is a very serious issue. But why add “Chinese Communist Party” to make the name so long, instead of just saying “China”?

After all, we rarely refer to the ruling parties of Iran, North Korea, Russia, Cuba, Venezuela or any other adversaries when discussing them. Nor, when talking about our allies, do we refer to them in their entirety as “The Canadian Liberal Party” or “The German Social Democratic Party.”

Yes, I recognize that Communist ruling parties are different than Western ones in how completely they achieve the Trumpian dream of fusing the party with the state such that the two become inseparable.  But that could just as well be another argument to simply employ the shorthand of “China” rather than “CCP” since that’s the only party of which that state consists.

The real reason that Repubs love to say CCP is because of how it reinforces their overall political program, domestic even more than foreign.  As those of us who remember the Cold War know better than anyone, in the right-wing mind, Communists are only the farthest end of a lefty spectrum that includes everyone who’s ever been guilty of a passing liberal thought. (I recall, when I was in college in 1984, the campus Republican newspaper featuring a cover cartoon of Vladimir Lenin wearing a Mondale button. That's how nuts this stuff was.)

Every reference to “Chinese communists” is a two-for-one for the right – not just an attack on a genuine global rival but also a backhand attack on the socialists at home. Ultimately, it’s not about Xi, it’s about Bernie and AOC, who, the right-wing noise machine endlessly insists, will turn America into a totalitarian hellhole if we give in to any of their demands to pay workers a fair wage or expand Medicare.

Never mind all the Hummer-sized holes in the logic flow required to get from A to B, like:

1.    The reality of where to classify China on a continuum from “capitalist” to “communist” is not as simple as it may seem. The country employs a kind of state-led capitalism that corruptly benefits insiders and often leaves rapacious practices poorly regulated. The Chinese environmental agency, for example, pales in comparison to our EPA. Nor is its social safety net as strong as you might expect, as reforms in the past few decades have weakened it.  The fact that the party still calls itself “Communist” while worshiping the almighty yuan is worthy of way more cognitive dissonance than it appears to receive.

2.    There is zero evidence of democratic socialism – much less progressive Democratic policies – ever leading inexorably to dictatorships in history. Neither FDR’s New Deal nor LBJ’s Great Society made the US fundamentally less democratic (though you can argue that the military-industrial establishment they built to fight their wars did). Many European countries have had socialist systems in name or in theory for decades without it leading to goosestepping soldiers and tanks in the streets.

3.    Unlike in the heyday of the Communist International 100 years ago, there is no relationship between US progressives and today’s so-called Communist countries, nor will there ever be, as they have no particular goals or agenda in common.

4.    The dynamics by which the major currently or formerly Communist countries became that way generally involved factions seeking to overthrow and replace feudal-based authoritarian regimes through the use of cynical strategies and propaganda intended to call workers and intellectuals to arms – not any deep commitment to the common people. This became pretty obvious whenever these factions came to power and began cracking down on anyone who dared challenge them while well-positioned revolutionary elites vacuumed up all the power and money that they could.

5.    Unlike democratic socialists, neo-fascists like the current MAGA-dominated Republican party have a clear authoritarian bent. While building a clean energy economy or giving more people health care will not lead to dictatorship, conscious efforts to reduce voting rights, give the president unchecked power, employ the military to control dissent in cities, remove the police from liability for harming members of the public, etc. will certainly take us in the direction.

All of this is my long way of saying: Please don’t just blindly employ Republican lingo like “CCP” – bringing with it the hidden connotations and agendas discussed above – and if you see the media doing so, please call them out on it. We don’t need to empower the right-wing attack machine against us because, quite simply — we’re not actual commies!