Trump reminds me of a famous episode in the Army-McCarthy hearings in the 1950s. Joseph McCarthy, the notorious anti-Communist fear monger, lying scum, and exploitive politician, had accused the USA Army of hiding communists. Attorney Welch represented the Army in the hearings. Keeping with his established methods of slur and innuendo, at one point McCarthy made a completely off base, irrelevant attack on the loyalty of Fred Fisher, a junior colleague in Welch’s law firm, a junior colleague who had nothing to do with the hearings. Welch replied:
“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 continued to press the issue, Welch replied:
“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?”
So many times those words come into my head after I read about quotes or actions by Trump.
But why should I be surprised? McCarthy’s right hand sleaze ball was Ron Cohen, the same Ron Cohen who Trump later sat at the foot of and learned every sleazy trick in the book.
“At long last have you no sense of decency?”
There is a difference. The Army-McCarthy hearings exposed McCarthy’s tactics and insanity to the public, beginning his eventual downfall. Trump’s disgusting behavior on the other hand is only meat to his supporters. Perhaps too many of us in the USA at long last have left no sense of decency...