Trumpism = McCarthyism

Washington DC

Description

“Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it:” Winston Churchill. Today’s Republican party is deteriorating so quickly and has become so desperate to find any relevance that they’re grasping at old, failed, corrupt, un-American tactics. Republicans are so unknowing of history that they are repeating one of the most shameful, dishonorable, ignorant periods of American political history: The McCarthy Era. Or perhaps they're repeating it because they are so morally corrupt. Joe McCarthy and his reptilian lackey Roy Cohn succeeded for a time with his “Red Baiting” of the 1950s because we were deep into the Cold War with the communist Soviet Union. People were afraid of the Soviets and therefore their political/economic system. McCarthy tried—successfully for a while—to pin the label of “Red Communist” on everyone with whom he disagreed (Democrats, academics, artists, actors, civil servants, homosexuals, and just about anyone with a brain). The great General and President Dwight Eisenhower (probably the least political, most bi-partisan president of all time) thought McCarthy was a political hack and a fundamental threat to not only the Republican party but to America itself. In the coming decades, McCarthyism was universally condemned by the entire American political establishment and his supporters disavowed any connection with the movement. Ironically, one of Donald Trump’s mentors was the same despicable Roy Cohn. And today’s Trump acolytes are so lacking in political capital that they’re reviving McCarthyism. McCarthy and Trump succeeded to a degree with a constant drumbeat of lies, lies, untruths, misinformation, accusations, insults, and lies. Trumpites have so little to challenge the Biden administration on, they are resorting to Red Baiting and calling everyone left of fascist a communist. What they don’t realize is that communism is dead—and no one cares. The Soviet Union is dead. Russia is a failing state with dictator and former communist Putin leading an authoritarian state controlled by corrupt oligarchs (Russia’s one percent). Russia wishes it were China. China abandoned communism in favor of Authoritarian Capitalism, and they kicked Trump’s ass when he implemented a poorly conceived trade war. Ironically, Trumpites are wrongly trying to tie Biden to the very men Trump had unabashed bromances with: Putin and North Korea’s Kim. The only authoritarian leader Trump didn’t favor or praise was China’s Xi Jinping. I wouldn’t be surprised if the surge in red baiting is being fueled by Russia’s massive disinformation complex. Former communists trying to foment division in the US by calling all Democrats communists. How ironic that the former Soviet Union would be intent on reviving McCarthyism for the benefit of their most favored American, their Manchurian Candidate Donald Trump.