Here’s a frightening thought experiment: How much more damage could the infamous 1950s demagogue Joseph McCarthy have done if he’d sat in the Oval Office?
Donald Trump’s deadly crusade against immigrants, “hardcore, godless Communists” and “left-wing political violence” gives us an idea.
In January, his deportation goons in Minnesota killed anti-ICE protesters Renee Good and Alex Pretti in broad daylight. Administration officials since then, as the New York Times recently documented, have investigated whether groups supporting protests provided “domestic terrorist financing” to “violent opportunists and agitators.”
Instead of charging the killers of Good and Pretti, the Justice Department has accused 15 alleged members of “antifa” of “organized lawless behavior” in Minneapolis. Trump can deploy federal prosecutors with abandon because he scares fellow Republicans who control Congress.
Senator Joe McCarthy intimidated President Dwight Eisenhower, too. But in his post-World War II anti-communist rampage, the Wisconsin Republican never controlled the government’s law enforcement and national security machinery.
Even without that power, McCarthy and the political arsonists he inspired burned America badly. I recently learned how my own family got singed in an episode that resembles Trump’s depredations today.