A lot of folks today have no recollection of the former Republican Senator from Wisconsin who caused such a horrific period of political bomb throwing, reputation destruction and public Congressional trials with no evidence. That person was Senator Joseph P. “Tail gunner” McCarthy, a Republican politician from Wisconsin in the late 40s and early 50s. His dishonorable actions during a period of communist baiting, of assaults on our judicial system of innocent until proven guilty, attacking the federal government agencies and their staff, and destroying the reputations and careers of many in the entertainment industry/everyday life. During this period, McCarthy’s vicious attacks and whose Senatorial committee actions created in 1950, a political slur called McCarthyism to describe a political assault with no validity other than demagoguery, reputation destruction, putting labels of communist, character assault, and vicious mudslinging. Today, the term is used more broadly to mean overarching demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents.
That McCarthy was a Republican Senator should surprise no one, considering the position and actions of today’s Congressional Republican Senators and House Representatives. But at least back then we had people in Congress and in public life who has a set of cajones or backbone who finally stood up to this scumbag and brought the public character assaults and false accusations to an end.
One of the Republican Congressional politicians who most resemble McCarthy is the current House Judiciary Chair, Jim Jordan of Ohio. However there are several others who represent the most vile attributes of that Wisconsin Senator of the 1950’s show trials of men and women whose only crime was to be in the gun sites of old Joe “Tail Gunner” McCarthy. BTW the Tail Gunner nickname was an actual slurring slam against McCarthy’s lies regarding his WWII activities, claiming to be in combat when that was a lie, he never saw combat during his time in the military.
And just like McCarthy, the Republican Jim Jordan continues his verbal false accusations against federal officials, entire federal departments and even extending to private citizens who have never been involved in a government role. Congress is not supposed to pile on with vile and vicious hearings toward private citizens, but just like McCarthy, Jordan and his Republican peer Chairpersons, have no qualms with using the power of the Congress to attack, demean, and cast aspersions against citizens who have no involvement with government, at any level. Jordan is not the only Republican in a senior committee chair role acting like McCarthy, that position also includes James Comer, of Kentucky, who pretends to have viable whistleblower witnesses who have factual evidence of illegal activity and these witnesses will prove the allegations being made by these Republican bomb throwers. Although he was recently forced to concede that much of his muckraking “evidence” was not available. Unfortunately for these two McCarthy-active Congressional Representatives their witnesses are either proven to be liars, disgruntled ex employees, or missing and cannot be found. Just like McCarthy, a lack of viable and provable evidence from this pair is no hindrance to their expansive pack of rabble rousing lies, false accusations, and a total waste of millions of taxpayer dollars.
As with the Republican’s earlier “hearings” regarding the Benghazi tragedy, where millions of dollars were wasted attempting to paint a Democratic Party political candidate with their false accusations, Jordan and Comer waste more millions of taxpayer dollars attacking the federal government, federal and other governmental employees, and besmirching civilian individuals. As it turned out, Trey Gowdy was eventually replaced by a different Republican Congressional Representative and has essentially disappeared from the public political stage, although he was hired to be a presenter on “Fox News Channel”.
Would it be that we could do the same with Comer and Jordan.
Also like McCarthy, these to rabble rousing Congressmen have put forth no viable legislation during their careers in the House and simply stand as road blocks, agitators, and back bench bomb throwers. The people who elected these two should be better represented and should at the next election promote a better, more honorable person to represent their districts. However, I doubt that those voters will make a change, most of this group of political hacks are pretty darn safe, because too many Republican and right wing voters are only interested in how much chaos their reps can create in Washington, They don’t seem to give a tinker’s damn about viable legislation, you know, that type of legislation that Congress is supposed to bring forth for the benefit of country and citizenry. Alas, the GOP no longer cares for this and frankly they are nothing like the Republican Party that seemed to wither away following Eisenhower’s second term.
As horribly vicious and integrity challenged these two Congressional Republicans are, there are many others within the Republican Caucus who are just as dishonorable, rabble rousing, lying, and anti-democracy acting and some are even far worse. This does not excuse the Senate Republicans as well. Integrity and honor were the strong suit of what our US Senate was supposed to be composed of across the board. Sadly, that is not the case and it only seems to get worse with each election cycle. Mitch McConnell whines about the Democratic speeches regarding adding four new Justices to the Supreme Court to mitigate the ChristoFascist Packing by the Republicans for the four Justices added under the Trump Administration. Two of the Justices were installed through totally phony and dishonorable actions by Senator McConnell when he was the Senate Leader in the Republican Majority during Trump’s debacle of a presidency.
Conservatism used to mean something real, viable and country focused rather than party or ideologically. Rather than seek to identify, collaborate and establish beneficial legislation, the GOP has done simply nothing of worth in the past few decades. Frankly, the last true beneficial legislation emanating from the GOP was the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System.
Seems that over the past couple of decades, the Grand Old Party has ceased to exist and a new American style of Fascism has evolved. This new brand is exemplified by men and women of low integrity and lacking character, who are currently in powerful positions and their assaults on our societal standards is directed at eliminating our democracy. Backed up with this new ChristoFascist Supreme Court, with Justices who are essentially totally lacking in honor were inserted on this highest court in our land by dishonorable means. So, now this new Republican organization is even more frightening, since it is basically moving toward a ChristoFascist style of ideological democracy destructive brand of fascism with in a partnership with certain evangelical religious groups. Men and women currently occupying these important political roles, are moving our nation away from the secular governance our founding fathers envisioned and fought for, toward a more authoritarian, evangelical Christian, white supremacy, fascist form of repression.
Evidencing the rise of religious power> simply look at the Supreme Courts decisions allowing more religious insertion in public life and government. And the recent actions in Oklahoma where a Catholic organization is close to having taxpayer money of 10s of millions of dollars directed at a Catholic run religious CHARTER school. There is a huge outcry and a lawsuit pending to stop this violation of our Constitution, but we see the same type of ChristoFascist ideology in place with the educational board charged with legal establishment of charter schools. More and more we see the religious encroachment into our governmental establishments, from local through Federal. And we are supposed to depend on men like Jordan and Comer along with knuckle draggers like Taylor-Green, Boebert, Gaetz, and idiots like the Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville, whose vile actions are holding up hundreds of military leadership promotions.
Dear God, save us from these fascist leaning, pseudo-Christian political hacks, our nation is in danger of losing our very foundation of individual freedom, upon which our forefathers established this United States of America.
I beg our more moderate and liberal citizens to be far more observant of the actions of these politicians and come election days, put them to the curb and install more honorable, dedicated public servants who actually give a shit about our national societal democracy.
Musings of a Geriatric Curmudgeon 