Yo Joe: Where are you? Your country needs you?
We all know where Joe McCarthy is. He died in 1957. In the 1950s the Senator from Wisconsin dominated the U.S. political climate with sensational but unproven charges of communist subversion in high government circles.
Like many Republicans of today, he became a notable figure by lying. In January of 1950, few had heard of Joseph McCarthy from Wisconsin. In February of 1950 his original lie, that 205 communists had infiltrated the United States State Department, catapulted him to national recognition. In testimony that year, he was unable to name one person serving in the State Department that was a Communist infiltrator.
McCarthy, a Republican, obtained Chairmanship of the Committee on Government Operations. In his Communist Witch Hunt, he accused many of being Communist, but was not able to substantiate any of his accusations. He was finally silenced when Army Lawyer Joseph Welch asked of McCarthy: “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”
Today, Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene are Republicans and national figures. Like McCarthy they obtained their political celebrity by lying. The difference is they are soft on Communism (if they even know what Communism is). They worship dictators, and they have no sense of decency.
In 1954, Republican Ralph Flanders, a Republican Senator from Vermont, introduced a resolution to censure Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. The motion passed 67-22.
How long will we have to wait for history to repeat itself? The real question is: When will Republicans reclaim their decency as they did in 1954? And the answer is, not until they rid themselves of Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis.
Today our nation is under threat. Not from fake Communists as McCarthy had claimed, but from fake Americans like Trump who seek to abolish our Constitution. We are under threat form Greene and Boebert who seek to end separation of Church and State. We are under threat from many who do not recognize that “ALL” people are entitled to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
And we will end this threat just as we did in 1954, by endlessly seeking and promoting truth. We need allies, and the most important allies we can have are the ones in the Republican Party, just as Ralph Flanders was. No, we can’t use Joseph McCarthy. We should not fight lies with lies.
The bottom line is you the reader, and I the writer, must exercise our voices. Our reticence, is a weapon of mass destruction. One thing we are certain of: Trump, DeSantis, Green and Boebert, all wish to silence us. They have no shame.