As Republican leaders begin to accept that their party’s presidential nominee is likely to be the totally unqualified blowhard Donald Trump, a crude racist and sexist hate candidate, conservative Republican New York Times columnist David Brooks is calling it “a Joe McCarthy moment.”
So far, in Brooks’ judgment, Republican leaders are failing spectacularly to show the courage and decency demanded by such a pivotal moment in American political history.
“They seem blithely unaware that this is a Joe McCarthy moment,” Brooks wrote. “People will be judged by where they stood at this time. Those who walked with Trump will be tainted forever after for the degradation of standards and the general election slaughter.”
You would think prominent Wisconsin Republicans such as Gov. Scott Walker and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan would know better coming from the state responsible for the election of Sen. McCarthy and the ugly stain of McCarthyism on U.S. politics that bears his name.
But even though Walker and Ryan have danced around to suggest Trump might not be the very finest candidate their party could put forward—each thinks he himself might be—they, too, are meekly falling into line to support Trump as the Republican nominee.
It shouldn’t have taken so long for someone to make the connection between Trump’s poisonous politics and McCarthy’s in the 1950s. Both brazenly escalated their demagoguery to further inflame hatred against targets Republicans already were demonizing to stir up voters.
It was communists in McCarthy’s day and brown-skinned immigrants in Trump’s. McCarthy and Trump were just more reckless, extreme versions of conventional politicians already playing on the same irrational fears and prejudices.
McCarthy had the support of his fellow Republicans when he was waving around fraudulent lists of communists he claimed had infiltrated the state departments of Harry Truman and previous Democratic presidents committing “20 years of treason!”
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California Congressman Richard Nixon and others rose to power within their party investigating “un-American activities” by progressives working in the government and, a sure-fire headline grabber, in the movie industry. They created blacklists and destroyed the careers and lives of decent people with abandon.
It was only when McCarthy, a sloppy drunk, began spewing his accusations of communist sympathies and moral degeneracy against the Eisenhower administration and the U.S. Army that Republicans began speaking up.
In December 1954, the U.S. Senate finally had enough and passed a censure resolution condemning McCarthy’s political behavior 67 to 22. All 44 Democrats present voted for censure as did independent Oregon Sen. Wayne Morse, the Bernie Sanders of his day.
Republicans split right down the middle. Only half of them, 22, had enough courage to vote for censure.
Today, Brooks says, Republicans are facing the same moment of truth. The biggest difference so far is even fearing a November defeat of historic proportions, fewer than a handful of leading Republicans have been courageous enough to refuse to support Trump as the Republican nominee.
Even when Ryan denounces Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric as offensive, un-Republican and un-American, he quickly adds he’ll of course support Trump for president if he’s the party’s nominee.
It will be amusing to watch those right-wing talk show hosts heralded nationally for opposing Trump ahead of the Wisconsin primary come crawling back to the Republicans after he wins the nomination.
Charlie Sykes even told Trump on the air he was a Never Trump guy. Johnny Mathis once promised to love someone until “The 12th of Never,” which he said was a long, long time. It might not be nearly so long for the Never Trump bunch.
The cover story for Republicans too cowardly to take a principled stand against Trump, of course, is that anyone, even Trump, who is nominated by their party would be superior to anyone, especially Hillary Clinton, nominated by Democrats.
That statement simply isn’t true. It’s just more political hatred. Many of us learned a couple of more profound quotes about political conflict in school.
One is from Dante: “The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.” The other is from Edmund Burke: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
This year could be the best thing that ever happened to the Republican Party. The disgraceful McCarthy Era ended when just half of the Republican members of the United States Senate had the courage to take a stand against a Republican demagogue from Wisconsin.
We’ve seen this science-fiction movie. Once again Republicans need to stand up against a malevolent force that’s taken over their party and been allowed to grow into an enormous, writhing monster threatening to destroy all intelligent life.
But too many Republicans seem to be having trouble deciding whether the destruction of civilization would really be all that bad if it finally ends Obamacare.
