Politics / America’s Third Red Scare Trump and the revival of “red-hunting” demagoguery. Taking a page from the old playbook of Joe McCarthy, Trump has spared no expense in painting his opponents with the red brush of communism. The hope of Loomer and her fellow Trumpian loonies is to criminalize dissent and silence all critical reporting on the Iran war and American imperialism more generally. Particularly noteworthy in the context of the rising Third Red Scare have been Rubio’s efforts to directly tie Trump’s regime-change fantasies with the president’s campaign to stifle dissent at home. Yet, if history is any indication, Trump’s “New Red Scare,” much like Joe McCarthy’s, will fall flat on its face.