A History and an Analogy

 

A History and an Analogy

 

        Once upon a time there was a small-town judge in Wisconsin named Joe. His job was “boring,” and he had loftier political ambitions so, when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, he requested and received a commission as a first Lieutenant. He was assigned as a Marine intelligence officer to the South Pacific, where his duties were limited to debriefing returning pilots who had actually been in harm’s way. After some time, when essentially all Japanese aircraft were either jungle rubble or in the ocean, units such as Joe’s still flew reconnaissance flights against empty skies.

        Eventually it became a free “ride-along” for non-combatants such as Joe, who knew he needed to “punch up” his record for future public consumption. The now largely observation flights (Japanese were long gone) became a quest for “records” of sorts. Joe claimed the record for most bullets fired as a tail gunner (4,700 on one flight) earning a humorous “award” from pilots as the record holder “for destroying the most vegetation on Bougainville.”   Along the way, he wrote for himself several citations describing his (non-existent) combat prowess, all dutifully forwarded by him to Fleet commanders who signed and returned these decorations to a man they had never met. At one point he hurt an ankle during a line-crossing initiation (transiting the equator) which left him with a slight limp he later claimed was due to several pounds of non-existent shrapnel from non-existent combat missions.

        He sent numerous accounts of his valor back home to Wisconsin in preparation for his glorious return and political career as “Tail Gunner Joe.” It worked. He resigned his commission in 1945, while war still raged, after a short leave in Wisconsin convinced him the time was ripe for political fortune.

        In 1946, running against a man, Senator Bob Lafollette, who had been 46 when the war began, and remained at his desk in Washington, Joe slandered his opponent with charges of cowardice, and unsubstantiated profiteering allegations. Meanwhile, his platform, such as it was, supported veterans’ pensions and the creation of an all-volunteer army—issues he knew would resonate with returning veterans and their families. His speeches on foreign affairs were laced with vague generalities that appealed to both isolationists and internationalists. His main theme was that America had the duty either to lead the world or to play no part in it at all. He never specified which alternative he favored.

        He won election to the US Senate in 1946, and after 4 years of less than stellar performance was in trouble by 1950. Angry colleagues accused him of lying, of manipulating figures, and of disregarding the Senate’s most cherished traditions. He was up for reelection in 1952, and most political analysts expected him to lose. At this point Joe desperately needed a “cause.” According to anecdotal accounts the suggestion for his career saving strategy came from a priest back home in Wisconsin.  

        Accordingly, during a routine dinner speech before a women’s Republican club in Wheeling, West Virginia, he declared that he held a “list of 205 communists” actively shaping policy in the State Department. He didn’t, but that soon became irrelevant, considering legitimate and increasing US concerns over Soviet Union policies and ambitions. This was a rich doctrinal field which Joe plowed with great vigor. Overnight, Joe’s notoriety grew a thousandfold, as he claimed that he could “Make America Safe Again” if allowed to “root out these card-carrying Reds and their “fellow travelers.”

        Our Joe didn’t invent the "big lie" strategy of claiming communist infiltration, but he was uniquely gifted in using it to promote himself publicly. He convinced an increasingly frightened America that the Reds and their fellow travelers had orchestrated a conspiracy so immense that he—and he alone—could be trusted to deliver the nation from it.

        Along the way, Joe took on an attorney named Roy, who became his “fixer”, as Joe’s alcohol fueled problems multiplied. Meanwhile, The US Senate,  more in the “cover our ass” mode because many of their constituents had bought into the Red Scare and expected their representatives to support the Brave Wisconsin “Commie fighter,” authorized his “investigation” by a vote of 85–1. Oddly enough Joe’s downfall started with his hired gun attorney, Roy who, while furthering the allegation that any gay individual in the government was a prime target for blackmail by Soviet spies, was himself a practicing homosexual.

        Roy had a boyfriend, David,  who was of draft age and was, accordingly, drafted. Since being an enlisted man was beneath such a worthy individual, David applied for, and was denied, a commission. In what would become a fatal gaffe, Joe agreed, urged by attorney Roy, to allege that the US Army, itself was rife with Communists. The resultant televised hearings were arguably the birth of reality television. Televised confrontations with the Army’s lead attorney, Judge Joseph Welch marked the beginning of the end for Joe.

         Eight months later, the Senate, several of whose members had apparently grown testicles, condemned him by a vote of 67–22. Eight months after that it would crush his spirit—and what remained of his career—by voting, 77–4, to censure him. Crushed and unelectable, Joseph McCarthy entered Bethesda Naval hospital on April 28, 1958. He died on May 2. The official cause of death was listed as acute hepatitis—or inflammation of the liver. While there was no specific mention of cirrhosis or delirium tremens, the press hinted, correctly, that he drank himself to death.

        Attorney Roy Cohn, however, motored along. Along the way he was indicted four times from the mid-’60s to the early ’70s—for stock-swindling, obstructing justice, perjury, bribery, conspiracy, extortion, blackmail, and filing false reports. Apparently made of Teflon, he was aquitted thrice and was the beneficiary of a mistrial. In 1973 he again latched on to a purveyor of the big lie, becoming Donald Trump’s attorney and fixer, the role he had honed under Joe McCarthy, He would occupy that role until his death in 1985.  

        Yeah, I know, so what? History has a way of circling back around and the current Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump dyad screams for comparison to McCarthy/Cohn. At the center if it all is the big lie, which in Trump’s case is probably best expressed as any of his assertions that he (Trump) actually cares about anything other than his own self-aggrandizement. Unlike McCarthy, one cannot tease out just one Big Lie without ignoring a host of whoppers of similar dimension. That said, the rest is a striking parallel, from the character assassination, to the shyster lawyer, himself a master of dirty tricks, to the doctrinal accusations devoid of merit.

         Up to now, much like the Senate facilitated Joe McCarthy for fear of offending their constituency, The Republicans in that same body have apparently suffered character-ectomies. Faced with a self-aggrandizing TV star business failure, they have largely shrunk from their duties to the truth. One can only hope that voters in the upcoming month will show more backbone.