It’s hard to believe that a sitting President would want to model himself after one of the most reviled figures in American history. But this is Donald Trump, and his recent attempts to emulate former Senator and disgraced witch-hunter Joseph McCarthy have the same stink as they did 70-ish years ago.
As is my won’t (because history matters, most people don’t pay enough attention to it, and in this case it’s easy to see the genesis of Trump’s vile accusations in the events of the 1950s), I’ll start with a quick refresher on Joseph McCarthy and the famous quote - uttered by U.S. Army Chief Counsel Joseph Welch - that serves as the title of this post.
Joseph McCarthy was a backbencher Senator from Wisconsin who served from 1947 - 1957. The post WWII period was the time of the “Red Scare”. The U.S. and the Soviet Union were vying for global supremacy, and their respective economic systems - capitalism and communism - served as “Cold War” proxies in the struggle.
After 3 undistinguished years in the Senate, McCarthy found his path to prominence in 1950 by raising the specter and fear of communism. He accused people from the State Department, the Army, Hollywood, higher education and others of being Soviet Spies and secret communists.
Innocent lives were ruined while McCarthy got his 15 minutes (technically, more like 4 or 5 years) of fame. McCarthy’s attacks culminated in U.S. Senate hearings into supposed communist infiltration into the U.S. Army in 1954. The lead lawyer representing the Army was one Joseph Welch.
On June 9, 1954, the 30th day of the Army–McCarthy hearings, Welch challenged Roy Cohn to provide U.S. Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr. with McCarthy's list of 130 Communists or subversives in defense plants "before sundown". McCarthy stepped in and said that if Welch was so concerned about persons aiding the Communist Party, he should check on a man in his Boston law office named Fred Fisher, who had once belonged to the National Lawyers Guild, which Brownell had called "the legal mouthpiece of the Communist Party".[7] Welch had privately discussed the matter with Fisher beforehand and the two agreed Fisher should not participate in the hearings. Welch dismissed Fisher's association with the NLG as a youthful indiscretion and attacked McCarthy for naming the young man before a nationwide television audience without prior warning or previous agreement to do so:
“Until this moment, Senator, I think I have never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. Fred Fisher is a young man who went to the Harvard Law School and came into my firm and is starting what looks to be a brilliant career with us. ... Little did I dream you could be so reckless and so cruel as to do an injury to that lad. It is true he is still with Hale and Dorr. It is true that he will continue to be with Hale and Dorr. It is, I regret to say, equally true that I fear he shall always bear a scar needlessly inflicted by you. If it were in my power to forgive you for your reckless cruelty, I would do so. I like to think I am a gentleman, but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me.”
When McCarthy tried to renew his attack, Welch interrupted him:
“Senator, may we not drop this? We know he belonged to the Lawyers Guild ... Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”
McCarthy tried to ask Welch another question about Fisher, and Welch interrupted:
“Mr. McCarthy, I will not discuss this further with you. You have sat within six feet of me and could have asked me about Fred Fisher. You have seen fit to bring it out. And if there is a God in Heaven, it will do neither you nor your cause any good. I will not discuss it further. I will not ask Mr. Cohn any more questions. You, Mr. Chairman, may, if you will, call the next witness.”
At this, those watching the proceedings broke into applause. Welch's TV performance turned the tide of public and press opinion against McCarthy overnight.[8][9] In July, a Republican senator introduced a motion, which passed later that year, censuring McCarthy for acts that "tended to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute, to obstruct the constitutional processes of the Senate, and to impair its dignity."[10]
McCarthy died in disgrace in 1957 - a mere 3 years after bearing the brunt of Welch’s heartfelt and searing plea made in front of the entire nation.
_________________________
Fast forward to current day.
I agree with Robert Reich. This is an act of abject desperation on Trump’s part. He’s got few arrows left in his rotting quiver. Remember, however, Trump’s mentor was Roy Cohn, who also - just coincidentally - happened to be the force behind McCarthy’s brief rise to stardom and power (Cohn was eventually disbarred in 1986 for unethical conduct).
The funny thing (if it wasn’t so serious and dangerous)? Generally, when one thinks of communism (as we in the U.S. were taught in Social Studies classes in school - when those classes still existed), one thinks of the government owning the means of production, government picking and choosing winners in the “marketplace”, and corrupt “elites” who siphon wealth and resources at the expense of the proletariat (i.e., the labor class) to enrich themselves and their families.
Under Trump 2.0, we have the federal government taking stakes in private sector companies, the federal government impounding oil revenues from a foreign country and secretly determining where those revenues will be allocated, the federal government propping up favored industries, and the families of ruling officials cashing in on connections/insider information to become fabulously wealthy. In fact, just yesterday, Donald Trump Jr.’s investment fund - 1789 Capital - reported unheard of returns of over 200% in the past couple of years (bolding emphasis mine):
Dating back to the first Trump administration, members of the Trump family have faced criticism for mixing business with politics. But what sets apart the latest moves by Donald Trump Jr. is how he and Mr. Malik, through 1789 Capital, are cashing in on the policies of the current administration openly and without apology.
Many of the companies that 1789 has invested in have large government contracts while others, like Polymarket, have benefited directly from new Trump policies or rollbacks of existing laws. The firm bought shares in some of the most coveted private companies before many went public, including SpaceX, Anduril, Cerebras and Reflection AI, often by leveraging their political and business connections to secure a stake or to help boost the companies’ sales.
Just two years ago, 1789 managed a few hundred million dollars. It now oversees more than $3 billion. Its main investment fund generated returns of roughly 200 percent as of June 30, according to a person familiar with the firm’s performance. While still early in its investment cycle, those returns eclipse the average returns of about 21 percent from venture capital firms started in 2023, according to PitchBook, a provider of financial data.
Angela Lee, a venture capital professor at Columbia Business School, said she had never seen a firm started by first-time fund managers raise so much money. “Any way you cut it, it’s unprecedented,” she said. One plausible explanation for the firm’s rapid success, she said: “People are paying for proximity to power.”
For those who still remember, this type of corrupt financial plundering based on “proximity to power” (a euphemism for family and friends of the ruling class) and “leveraging their political and business connections” (a euphemism for corrupt insider wealth accumulation) was a hallmark of the Soviet Union and other countries behind the Iron Curtain. these corrupt leaders and their families preached egalitarianism and sacrifice for the common good while secretly (and sometimes blatantly openly) enriching themselves. Joseph Stalin anyone?
Donald Trump anyone?
Trump’s reactionary accusation of “communists everywhere” is a tired trope that should be met with derision, laughter and rapid response that turns the tables back on the accuser(s) before pivoting to how those accusers are corruptly plundering the system/economy at the expense of every single citizen of the United States.
Effortless wealth for thee; no healthcare, housing, food or gas for me.
Trump is banking on his preferred “low-info” voters to not see the historic parallels or understand what he is doing and who he is copying.
The following is a great example of pushback (especially since it occurred at the expense of the execrable Scott Jennings):
The ghost of Joseph McCarthy lives on. Who will be today’s Joseph Welch?
Holly Near - I Ain’t Afraid
