, Columnist
Trump's Campaign Against Immigrants Echoes (and Ignores) the Red Scare
Linking immigrants and terrorism makes McCarthyism look sort of reasonable.
Joe McCarthy knew a thing or two about catching traitors.
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In the summer of 1954, during hearings prompted by his investigation of Communism in the U.S. Army, Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy hit his professional nadir. Speaking to Joseph Welch, chief counsel for the Army, McCarthy accused a young lawyer who worked in Welch’s law firm of having been “a member of an organization which is named, oh, years and years ago, as the legal bulwark of the Communist Party.”
Welch was stunned. “Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty, or your recklessness,” he responded. When McCarthy pressed his point, Welch asked: “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”