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As the MAGA movement attacks members of the Democratic party as “socialists” and “communists” while positioning China as the “greatest threat” to American security, it might seem strange to compare Donald Trump to Mao Zedong, a figure alternately worshipped and reviled for his role in the Chinese revolution. As a scholar of modern Chinese fiction, film, and cultural history, much of what has unfolded throughout the American political arena over the past few months has felt eerily reminiscent of events from the era of high socialism and the reign of Mao Zedong.

The term “political purge” is a commonly used keyword for those of us familiar with this period; purges came in waves, from the Anti-Rightist Movement to the Cultural Revolution. But I don’t think I’d ever heard the term used to describe American politics, at least not until the past few weeks, when recent headlines speak of the seemingly incessant “purges” taking place at the FBI, DOJ, and other federal agencies. When Donald Trump announced he was firing members of the Kennedy Center’s board of trustees and installing himself as chairman, I was immediately reminded of Mao’s hands-on approach to curating cultural discourse, from his early “Yan’an Talks on Art and Literature” in 1942 to installing his wife Jiang Qing as the unofficial cultural czar during the Cultural Revolution. The list of comparisons goes on, from the way Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have offered long sycophantic statements about Trump’s brilliant leadership, to the broader cult of personality—with red MAGA hats replacing little red books. Some Trump allies have even begun sporting Trump lapel pins, that recall the coveted Mao badges worn by Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution. The employment of lofty, categorical speech like “My fellow Americans, get ready for an incredible future, because the golden Age of America has only just begun. It will be like nothing that has ever been seen before” immediately brings to mind a litany of similarly florid praise for Mao: Lin Biao’s famous description of Mao as a “great teacher, great leader, great supreme commander and great helmsman” or the Central Committee’s description of the Cultural Revolution as a “great revolution that will touch the people to their very souls.” And then of course there are each leaders’ disparaging takes on intellectuals and education and penchant for unleashing political chaos. There is also a powerful sense of uncanny irony when a regime that has repeatedly characterized China as “the greatest threat to America,” taken a particularly aggressive stance on China with current tariff policies is simultaneously internalizing so many of China’s worst political practices from the darkest days of its socialist past. Of course, others including Orville Schell and Fareed Zakaria have observed these troubling echoes. But another parallel has me particularly concerned. Continue reading Echoes of China’s past in America’s present →