Do you suppose that there's a difference in American politics today where that speech had the effects it had then vs. what it'd do in our current climate under similar circumstances, then?
I think the environments are completely different, and the partisan situation in D.C. is different. One of the reasons the Republicans were able to run the government for six years with such slim majorities was an unprecedented sense of partisan unity — a unity that has only been surpassed by the cohesion Grandma Nancy has forced on the House Dems over the past 3 years.
Joe McCarthy didn't represent even the majority of Republicans, let alone people in the country, but he was able to appear as he did, as long as people were afraid of him. Welch represented the Army, one of the most popular institutions in America, and by extension, the Republican President (Eisenhower). Now, if the excesses of the past few years were the work of out of control congressional Republicans, and the Republican executive sent a surrogate to the Hill to shame them into knocking it off, it would have a similar effect.
Obviously, such a situation is laughable, as the moral rot and corruption of the modern Republican party runs right through its core.
1 comment:
This is what I was thinking as well, that in a large part, it was a collective sense of shame that did old McCarthy in. The new Republican party is above or, perhaps more appropriately, far beneath shame and so the situation that we see in that speech is unlikely to reoccur at this time.
On the other hand, that is a path that leads to self-destruction. As long as you continue to throw the population something, anything, they might eat from your hand for a decade, but eventually they realize they've been fooled.
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