It was only a matter of time before Donald Trump went full Joe McCarthy. Since the president first entered politics, he’s been using many of the classic Red Scare tactics: enemies lists, purges, denaturalization, expulsions, jailing of political opposition. It’s been done before, here and elsewhere. But it looks like Trump now sees it as his magic key to the midterms.
Republicans have been playing this card for nearly a century now. Throughout the Cold War, they tarred the Democratic Party with the communist label with some success, especially during the early post-war years of the 1940s and 1950s. The investigations of the House Un-American Activities Committee and the Army-McCarthy hearings dominated the political discourse for years, with everyone in government and throughout the entertainment industry looking over their shoulders, worrying that their youthful attendance at a left-wing meeting would land them in hot water. In those early days of television, it became the biggest show in the country, and certain people hovering around those who were perpetrating these witch hunts had a lingering, profound effect on the nation’s future. One of them was a lawyer named Roy Cohn.
