Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump in his State of the Union address pre­viewed the mes­sag­ing the GOP plans to trot out dur­ing the 2020 campaign.

We bet that a bold program that empowers working people, repudiates racism and protects what’s left of our fragile planet will win at the polls in 2020.

As expect­ed from a man whose only known bed­time read­ing is a book of Hitler’s speech­es, Trump will con­script the white nation­al­ists and the Chris­t­ian Right in his vil­i­fi­ca­tion of immi­grants who are invad­ing the ​“home­land.”

“Orga­nized car­a­vans are on the march to the Unit­ed States,” Trump told the nation, explain­ing that he had ​“ordered anoth­er 3,750 troops to our south­ern bor­der to pre­pare for this tremen­dous onslaught” against ​“work­ing-class … inno­cent Americans.”

Trump, like author­i­tar­i­ans and neo­fas­cists in Brazil, Israel, Hun­gary, Rus­sia and the Philip­pines, hopes that by stok­ing nation­al­ist anx­i­eties and delu­sions, he can pro­pel his polit­i­cal base into a state of per­ma­nent hys­te­ria. Trump and Trump­ist ide­o­logues like Tuck­er Carl­son on Fox News pro­fess to speak for the work­ing class and denounce ​“elites,” even as their poli­cies serve the inter­ests of the super-rich. Theirs is an old and evil tra­di­tion of xeno­pho­bia and nation­al­ism, retooled for the age of social media.

In addi­tion to foment­ing hate of ​“ille­gal immi­grants,” Trump used the State of the Union to pro­claim, ​“We are alarmed by new calls to adopt social­ism in our coun­try. … We renew our resolve that Amer­i­ca will nev­er be a social­ist coun­try.” Repub­li­can law­mak­ers jumped to their feet and shout­ed ​“U.S.A.! U.S.A.!”

More than a few Democ­rats also stood and clapped. Yet, most con­gres­sion­al Democ­rats refused to stand. Accord­ing to Fox News, ​“refus­ing to stand” is now a crime akin to ​“tak­ing a knee.”

The next day, Trump advis­er Kellyanne Con­way told Fox News Radio: “[Demo­c­ra­t­ic social­ism is] creep­ing through­out the entire par­ty. It will be a theme in 2020.” To wit, on Feb­ru­ary 21 a Fox News head­line blared: ​“Crit­ics Say Green New Deal Is Cov­er for Social­ist Agenda.”

We’ve heard that before. The his­to­ry of Amer­i­can red-bait­ing is as long as the his­to­ry of Amer­i­can reds. In 1856, the New York Times inveighed against the ​“many social­ist Paineites,” who, with ​“their affil­i­a­tion to every species of rad­i­cal­ism in the land, bod­ed evil to the future of our republic.”

We at In These Times are proud to count our­selves among the heirs of Tom Paine, a lead­ing fig­ure of the Rad­i­cal Enlight­en­ment and the author of ​“Com­mon Sense,” a 1776 pam­phlet that inspired the (as of yet unfin­ished) Amer­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion. In Paine’s tra­di­tion, we chal­lenge the sta­tus quo by ampli­fy­ing the voic­es demand­ing struc­tur­al change. We believe we have the pow­er, as Paine put it, ​“to begin the world over again.” This con­fi­dence in our abil­i­ty to build a just soci­ety ani­mates the Move­ment for Black Lives, the Sun­rise Move­ment, and an uncom­pro­mis­ing gen­er­a­tion of young con­gres­sion­al lead­ers and mil­len­ni­als who won’t take ​“slow” for an answer when it comes to tran­si­tion­ing to a green economy.

We’ll need that con­vic­tion to enact the urgent eco­nom­ic and envi­ron­men­tal demands of the Green New Deal, spear­head­ed by demo­c­ra­t­ic social­ist Rep. Alexan­dria Oca­sio-Cortez (D‑N.Y.).

The GOP is wager­ing that the Green New Deal and the rebirth of demo­c­ra­t­ic social­ism can be craft­ed into a cam­paign mes­sage that will mit­i­gate the electorate’s grow­ing revul­sion toward the GOP brand. We bet that a bold pro­gram that empow­ers work­ing peo­ple, repu­di­ates racism and pro­tects what’s left of our frag­ile plan­et will win at the polls in 2020.

Here at In These Times we stand with the Paineites. We thank our read­ers for stand­ing with us. Here’s to you, to demo­c­ra­t­ic social­ism, and to the Green New Deal.