Glenden BrownMcCainism versus McCarthyism
From TPM:
. . . McCain’s campaign has devolved into something altogether different … what with its increasingly open appeals to racial conflict and aggressive invocations of blood hatred of Arabs and Muslims. As The New Republic phrases it, McCain’s “subtle incitements of racial warfare and underhanded implications of foreign nativity.” Over the months we’ve become desensitized to the moral depravity of McCain’s campaign . . . [snip] But as John Judis notes, a closer look at the language and imargery McCain’s ’socialism’ pitch reveals it’s actually “about whites paying their taxes so that lazy, indolent, unemployed blacks can live off them.”
McCarthyism has rightly become an American shorthand for smearing liberals and anyone else from the center leftward as political traitors . . . Where McCainism is different is in its particular amalgam of racism and xenophobia specially suited to this historical moment, to this opponent and to Americans’ continuing fears of foreign threat from Muslims and Arabs seven years into the War on Terror.
I’ve been trying to get a handle on how McCainism is both alike and distinct from McCarthyism. This description strikes me as one of the better I’ve seen.
November 2nd, 2008 at 12:13 pm
I recently saw an old clip of McCarthy using John McCain’s favorite two words: “my friends.”Sort of creeped me out.
November 2nd, 2008 at 12:40 pm
McCarthy was a hero who was absolutely correct. The people he targeted were Communist vermin. Liberals love McCarthy because they can demonize good people who are concerned with the spread of the evils of Communism and totalitarianism by painting them with the term “McCarthyism”. McCarthy should be revered, and there should be a monument with a marble statue of him featured prominently in the Mall at Washington DC. He was vilified for doing the right thing. Now that we are on the verge of possibly electing a Communist we need people with courage like Joe McCarthy to fight the menace with every fiber of our beings.
November 2nd, 2008 at 1:49 pm
TheP,
McCarthy epitomizes the ultimate in guilt by association. People who were simply friends of suspected communists were considered communist sympathizers. Many people had their careers ruined for admitting to those associations. Others felt compelled to lie to avoid being black-listed, to their terrible personal sorrow and guilt. Not vermin, but good hard-working Americans.
McCarthy was no hero. He was a blot on the our history and an insult to free speech and the constitution. So much so, that we used his name to create the term “McCarthyism” to define such illigitimate witch hunts.
November 2nd, 2008 at 7:39 pm
While I was out and about, listening to ‘A Prairie Home Companion’ on NPR, I was reminded that Studs Terkel, of whom I wrote yesterday, was one of those blacklisted by McCarthyism. You have to admire a man who came through that ordeal still loving his country, having a sense of humor, and wanting to bring about changes to better the world. I’m sorry for you, ThePat, that you don’t have someone similar to look up to.
In fact, I believe we might have the corner on that kind of personality. You guys get Michael Savage and Michelle Malkin. You get anger and hate. We get people who rise above injustice and go on to live remarkable lives! And who inspire us to do the same.