Some time ago I wrote an extended post about the interconnections between the legendary demagogue Joe McCarthy and the demagogue currently residing in the White House. Both are linked through the person of the famously evil Roy Cohn. who served as both Joe Mc Carthy's hatchet man and in later years served as Trump's lawyer and mentor,
Much of what afflicts our politics today found it's antecedents back then. Switch what was said about suspected 1950's era Communist subversives with today's pejorative terms for immigrants. The rhetoric has remained the same. Those who oppose aspects of national affairs such as witch hunts and wars and walls, routinely have their patriotism attacked and their very loyalty to the nation impugned. The "birther" controversy that supercharged Trump's candidacy was a page from that playbook.
Now that we are nearly through Trump's term of office, it seems a good juncture to analyze the similarities and differences. One place to start is to see how intelligent people failed to see what we know now about the years of anti-communist hysteria. Beginning with some events close to home.
A little-known chapter in my family's history is that the infamous Senator McCarth was said to be an honored guest at my aunt and uncle's Milwaukee wedding in the mid-1950s. In retrospect, the clan came to view that visit as an indelible black mark on our name, but at that time Joe was considered an aspirational example of Irish Catholic royalty. The Irish immigrant community was much more insular in that era, while the Catholic Church in the era was vehemently opposed to Communism.
Long before mass media thrust into prominence the politicized clerics of the right such as Jerry Falwell, D. James Kennedy, Jimmy Swaggart, and Franklin Graham, the Catholic Church was ahead of the game. As hard as it is to envision now, the number one rated program in television was a show called "Life is Worth Living" hosted by an auxiliary Archbishop in the New York Archdiocese, named Fulton J. Sheen, whose post-television career included a stint as Bishop of Rochester, N.Y where he gave a certain blogger his First Holy Communion. Here is an example of his crusade against communism.
In this clip a large assortment of guest stars (Jack Benny, Rochester, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, William Holden, Anne Blythe, Loretta Young) gather in Benny's house to discuss "how helping your neighbor" can stop Communist subversion, and the infamous hidden "Fifth Column" that sought to "tear the heart out of the Declaration of Independence".
The priest featured was the charismatic Father James Keller who along with Bishop Sheen was one of the most public faces of the Church in Mc Carthy's era. Father Keller was the founder of the Catholic civic group, the Christophers. As can be seen in the following clip, he was far ahead of his time in the use of celebrities to spread the Christophers' message through film, radio, and television.
Ours was not the only Irish Catholic family who was vicariously complicit in enabling the dark legend that was Joe McCarthy. There was also the Kennedy family.
Shortly after graduating from the University of Virginia Law School in 1952, Robert Kennedy got a job on Capitol Hill courtesy of their old family friend. McCarthy not only had vacationed with the Kennedy family, he actually dated two Kennedy sisters, first Eunice (the mother of Maria Shriver and Founder of the Special Olympics) and then Pat (who later married the actor Peter Lawford).
RFK went to work on Joe's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations examining possible communists' infiltration of the U.S. government. Kennedy left six months later, after clashing with McCarthy’s brash young deputy, Roy Cohn. Most of the Kennedy clan were honored guests at McCarthy's wedding to his assistant Jean Kerr, as was Vice President Richard Nixon and a significant percentage of official and social Washington.
Eventually, both Bobby and his brother John became disillusioned with McCarthy’s brutal tactics. But neither brother ever completely disavowed him. In fact, Bobby Kennedy made McCarthy godfather to his oldest child, Kathleen. When McCarthy was finally censured by the Senate in 1954, John Kennedy, ostensibly recuperating from back surgery, was the only Democrat not to vote in favour of the measure.
After McCarthy was censured by the Senate, he succeeded in drinking himself into an early grave. Though Bobby Kennedy had left the committee years before, he famously attended McCarthy's funeral. The one thing that both fascinates and appalls observers is the degree of "buy-in" we saw in one of the darkest times in our history. Though one must go back through 70 years the tentacles of the great "Red Scare" are still weaved throughout our recent history.
RFK went to work on Joe's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations examining possible communists' infiltration of the U.S. government. Kennedy left six months later, after clashing with McCarthy’s brash young deputy, Roy Cohn. Most of the Kennedy clan were honored guests at McCarthy's wedding to his assistant Jean Kerr, as was Vice President Richard Nixon and a significant percentage of official and social Washington.
Eventually, both Bobby and his brother John became disillusioned with McCarthy’s brutal tactics. But neither brother ever completely disavowed him. In fact, Bobby Kennedy made McCarthy godfather to his oldest child, Kathleen. When McCarthy was finally censured by the Senate in 1954, John Kennedy, ostensibly recuperating from back surgery, was the only Democrat not to vote in favour of the measure.
After McCarthy was censured by the Senate, he succeeded in drinking himself into an early grave. Though Bobby Kennedy had left the committee years before, he famously attended McCarthy's funeral. The one thing that both fascinates and appalls observers is the degree of "buy-in" we saw in one of the darkest times in our history. Though one must go back through 70 years the tentacles of the great "Red Scare" are still weaved throughout our recent history.
Over the past three and a half years, almost everybody has speculated about the rise of a Neo-McCarthyism. So far, the militantly reactionary Trump Administration has fallen short of channeling the political repression of the 1940s and ’50s. But a perusal of the Presidential Twitter feed in concert with media outlets such as Fox News and the National Enquirer certainly evokes memories of the great practitioners of the dark political arts.
As frightening as scenes such as Charlottesville have been, as disturbing as some of the President's rallies have been, we have yet to see millions scared into silence. Indeed the opposite has happened.
In Trump's ongoing attacks against the "fake news media", we do see an attempt to create a widespread movement that treats dissent and objective journalism as disloyalty. With all that has happened in 2020, that effort has extended to the denigration of scientists, physicians, and public health officials.
Unlike the America of Joe McCarthy, the left has been reinvigorated as opposed to marginalized in the Trump era. And though we have yet to see thousands of law-abiding Americans, put into legal jeopardy, Trump's war against demonstrators certainly reminds us of the historic images of the 1960's.
One significant variation between the McCarthyism era and Trump's is that the nation is not perceived as being in existential danger from a nation-state that exports an ideology viewed as a pervasive threat to American security. Though the Chinese regime is accused of creating Trump's "Wuhan Virus" in a lab all but the most biased of observers fail to believe that the so-called 'Sharia Law", compares to the perceived threat of internal subversion that the worldwide Communist threat represented.
McCarthyism was a broad-based attempt to eliminate an entire political philosophy from the landscape. along with any associated, individuals, institutions, and ideas from any influence within our society. Trumpism is geared more to attacking individual enemies regardless of ideology.
Trump's methods have definite echoes of the 1950s. One difference is that instead of having alleged subversives or political enemies called out by the media, a Congressional Committee, or by an official agency like the FBI, Trump usually does his own dirty work via the Presidential Twitter feed. Unlike McCarthy's time, the people (so far) to have been fired due to Trumpism seem to be members of his own administration. Think Comey, Mattis, Tillerson, Bolton, and a host of lower-level officials to numerous to mention.
The most frequent consequences that victims of McCarthy faced were economic, though a few hundred people were incarcerated, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed. Those named publically or added to a blacklist lost their jobs and seldom found new ones. for decades. Blacklisting in the entertainment industry is the most visible most remembered outcome. But those from all walks of life who somehow got entangled in the anti-communist furor ended up out of work and for a long while were unemployable. In Trump's time, they often sign lucrative book deals.
One significant variation between the McCarthyism era and Trump's is that the nation is not perceived as being in existential danger from a nation-state that exports an ideology viewed as a pervasive threat to American security. Though the Chinese regime is accused of creating Trump's "Wuhan Virus" in a lab all but the most biased of observers fail to believe that the so-called 'Sharia Law", compares to the perceived threat of internal subversion that the worldwide Communist threat represented.
McCarthyism was a broad-based attempt to eliminate an entire political philosophy from the landscape. along with any associated, individuals, institutions, and ideas from any influence within our society. Trumpism is geared more to attacking individual enemies regardless of ideology.
Trump's methods have definite echoes of the 1950s. One difference is that instead of having alleged subversives or political enemies called out by the media, a Congressional Committee, or by an official agency like the FBI, Trump usually does his own dirty work via the Presidential Twitter feed. Unlike McCarthy's time, the people (so far) to have been fired due to Trumpism seem to be members of his own administration. Think Comey, Mattis, Tillerson, Bolton, and a host of lower-level officials to numerous to mention.
The most frequent consequences that victims of McCarthy faced were economic, though a few hundred people were incarcerated, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed. Those named publically or added to a blacklist lost their jobs and seldom found new ones. for decades. Blacklisting in the entertainment industry is the most visible most remembered outcome. But those from all walks of life who somehow got entangled in the anti-communist furor ended up out of work and for a long while were unemployable. In Trump's time, they often sign lucrative book deals.
The most vivid memories of the Mc Carthy's time are those of betrayal, of being snitched out in private, or named publically by an old associate. McCarthyism would have never become as potent of a force, without the tacit assistance of public and private sector employers. Prospective economic ruin was often enough to stifle dissent. Like many of the news stories we see today, oppression was greatly assisted by the failure of many American institutions to react. Much of the judiciary then (and now) bought into the concept of a pervasive and subversive threat to national security., whether it was the Marxian left in the '50s or non-White immigrants today. The courts failed to preclude unjust criminal prosecutions. Both the judicial and legislative branches failed to halt or at least slow the constant drumbeat of Congressional "witch hunts." by both the House Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC), and it's Senate counterpart led by Senator McCarthy.
Unlike the McCarthy area, the non-Marxian left has not failed to take a stand against Trump's insanity. That is probably an outcome of the days of McCarthy, even though memories have faded. Though the impeachment effort against Trump lost in the US Senate, there was at least an attempt to rein in Presidential abuses. In the '50s, there was more of a "cover your ass" approach within the media, the academy, and usually reliable liberal constituencies such as Unions, Civil Rights groups, and even the ACLU that famously refused to defend many alleged "Reds."
The reason McCarthyism died was that Joe McCarthy finally went too far on national television, The institutions that had passively or actively assisted in the hunting of witches timidly and quietly ceased their partnership with the dark forces McCarthyism released. On rare occasions, there were even apologies, but the experiences of most victims were to die without their lives returned to some semblance of what they were before.
Until recent weeks, one could argue that the sowing by President Trump of widespread distrust of virtually every American Institution worked in the goal of precluding dissent. If you had asked most observers in academia and journalism, it seemed that whatever lessons the last demagogue had taught us, had again been lost in a cloud of fear and ass-covering. Then out of nowhere came a worldwide pandemic, Depression-era economic dislocations, and the massive demonstrations against the death of George Floyd. As of this writing, it seems that these almost Biblical string of calamities will result in the Trump era ending in November if there is a free and fair election. Sadly, that is one big if.
