McCarthyism, Trump and Trumpers Attack ‘Enemies from Within’
By Alan Singer
In testimony before a United States Senate sub-committee, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem refused to apologize for labeling two U.S. citizens killed by I.C.E. agents in Minneapolis as domestic terrorists. At a Congressional hearing, FBI Director Kash Patel dismissed questions from the panel as “bullshit” and refused to answer. Vice President JD Vance claimed protesters against I.C.E. assaults on civil liberties and due process “hate the idea that Americans can enjoy their communities.” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller called the protesters “stupid white hippies” and “crazy communists”. Donald Trump has called political opponents “un-American“ and protesters “animals” and a “foreign enemy.”
Sadly, unsubstantiated charges, blatant lies, personal attacks, legal shenanigans, and manipulation of the public for political advancement, the modus operandi of the Trump administration, are not new in the United States. In the 1950s, Wisconsin Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy and Mississippi Democrat James Eastland were Donald Trump style hate-monger decades before Trump emerged on the political scene. Among their targets were journalists who they wanted to intimidate into silence. In violation of the First Amendment, the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee subpoenaed reporters and editors to question them about their political beliefs, their newspaper’s editorial policies and its hiring practices.
Despicable villains like Kristi Noem, Kash Patel, JD Vance, Stephen Miller, and Donald Trump are masters of the McCarthy playbook attacking victims of I.C.E. shootings in Minneapolis as “domestic terrorists” even though video evidence showed that were murdered in cold blood. In their attacks on journalists the Trump team is even outdoing McCarthy and Eastland. At least six journalists were violently attacked by I.C.E. and Border Control agents while covering the anti-I.C.E. protests in Minneapolis and two, Don Lemon and Georgia Fort, were arrested. Lemon and Fort were indicted on federal charges after they covered a protest at a church whose pastor was also an I.C.E. official. The Justice Department pressed for the indictments as an intimidation tactic after two judges refused to grant them for lack of evidence.
Click here for the full article.
Source: Daily Kos
Image source: ClipartOf.com
Alan Singer is a historian and teacher educator at Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York. His most recent books are Social Studies for Secondary Schools, 5th edition (Routledge, 2024) and Class-Conscious Coal Miners (SUNY Press, 2024). Blogs, tweets, essays, interviews, and e-blasts present his views and not those of Hofstra University.