During the late 1940s up until the mid 50s, United States Senator Joseph McCarthy took it upon himself to weed out the corruption and threat of the communist spies and party members part of the “deep state.” Oh sorry, “deep state” was Trump’s thing. Senator McCarthy simply called it “the state department.” It’s easy to mix up the details between the two politicians because they both used the same propaganda, fearmongering, conspiracy stoking and language to rally supporters of their cause.
It’s a well-known fact that history repeats itself. Senator McCarthy was responsible for stirring the pot of controversy and encouraging fear amid the Red Scare, a part of our countries history that was already swarming with paranoia and suspicion over communist interference of our government and politics. McCarthyism followed organically as the term’s namesake made false claim after false claim.
Senator McCarthy and our ex-President, Donald J. Trump, share more than an affinity for misinformation. Their performances in front of crowds and the press are mirror images of each other. Trump’s behavior and the end of his term resemble a reboot of a classic television show that no one needed and only the most disturbing of fan base wanted.
On Feb. 9, 1950, Senator McCarthy made a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia where he claimed to know specific names of communist party members who were traitors to the government. Among the many who were fired or blacklisted for being reported as a communist with no tangible evidence were left-wing government employees, several prominent left-leaning Hollywood stars and everyday working Americans.
Everyone was a target during the Red Scare and at times it seemed more about who could report who first rather than actual communist concern.
What should scare us is how similarly Trump had in the past claimed to have specific knowledge of a certain nature revealing truths that would soon be known to the public. The American people should be more scared of how many times Trump held up a non-disclosed piece of paper claiming to have letters, agreements, facts, etc. in front of the crowds of people and press. Eerily similar, on Feb. 9, 1950, Senator McCarthy held up a slip of ambiguous paper while addressing a crowd and said: “While I cannot take the time to name all the men in the State Department who have been named as members of the Communist Party and members of a spy ring, I have here in my hand a list of 205.”
Sanity and commonsense are as scarce in a post-Trump era as it was during his presidency. Trump and McCarthy gained power and influence through these ideas leading to a frenzied blind following massive fan base. Both relied on fear and anger to stay in power and used manipulative half-truths and false statements to earn any kind of credibility.
Towards the end of Trump’s reign of terror in office, the walls slowly began to close in on him just as they did his doppelganger, Senator McCarthy. Ultimately, Senator McCarthy was connected to a failed investigation to find credible evidence of communist spies and influence within the state department.
After the investigation concluded, he launched more investigations into the government despite no evidence ever being found. After many aggressive interrogations of government officials, over 2,000 government employees lost their jobs. All of whom by today’s standards and conclusions were innocent.
Trump similarly launched baseless investigations into different government agencies looking to uproot what he claimed was “corruption.” At the end of his several certified losses of the election, he claimed there was mass voter fraud, corrupt and bias officials, vote counters and policymakers who “stole the election” from him.
At the end of McCarthy’s country-wide tour of communist conspiracy attacks, he made a misstep attacking the Army and its leaders. Following this accusation of Communist ties, McCarthy was brought to trial by the United States Army which revealed McCarthy to have been negotiating and bargaining for special treatment and favors for his friends and co-workers serving. It was during this trial that McCarthy lost most of his allies in the Senate and was eventually condemned in a 65 to 22 vote for “conduct unbecoming of a Senator.”
After the attack at the Capitol, Donald Trump was temporarily held accountable for what many called “conduct unbecoming of a President” by inciting a treasonous insurrection. Unfortunately, like McCarthy once again, the 45th President of the United States was not removed from office or banned from running again.
No one can predict where the plot will go from here and there is no plausible way for any spoilers to be leaked. The only thing that is for certain is that McCarthy permanently scared this country. A way so deep and bold that we should have noticed Trump was doing the exact same thing.
Rebecca Pratt can be reached at [email protected].
Pete
Most of us were taught in school the establishment version of history. 1945-1960 was usually quite vague. For practical reason. Now why is Joe McCarthy important? On February 9, 1950, Cold War patriot Senator Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin burst upon the world scene with his Wheeling WV speech about Reds in the State Department. As he would speak over the years, federal agencies unloaded hundreds of Reds from the swamp payroll. People came to McCarthy, not the other way around. He tapped into the American common man’s growing frustration over deep state coverups of espionage, the deliberate acts of US policymakers giving away eastern Europe to Stalin, and China to Mao, advancing “worker paradises” at our expense and blood. McCarthy came along at just the right time and became the Left’s favorite bogeyman. Had McCarthy not acted, much of the true history of government subterfuge would probably have been lost forever. McCarthy brought into blazing daylight the Truman Justice Department’s felonious whitewash of the 1945 Amerasia case, for example, and called out deep state liars from Harry Truman to Owen Lattimore. We can thank writers like Arthur Herman for his 1999 easy reading trailblazer “Joseph McCarthy: Reexamining the Life and Legacy of America’s Most Hated Senator” and the best of all, M. Stanton Evans with the 2007 “Blacklisted by History: the Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America’s Enemies.”
Dan Roe
Spoken like a true leftist. Imagine if the news media were unbiased and reported news instead of a narrative. Broaden your horizons.