Sen. Joe McCarthy: Foregrounding the scaremongering trajectory of Republican politics since the 1950s

It's not fair to lump all Republicans together and paint the entirety of the party as radicals. Quite frankly, I'm sick of seeing this s***.

It's not right to generalize and stereotype the entirety of Republicans because of Trump and his supporters. That's really not any better than how some of them throw around the go-to "Democrat-run cities" line for example, and try to paint all Democrats as corrupt and parasitic. Some of them would have you believe that Cuomo is representative of the Democratic party, when there are plenty of democrats to be found who are appalled by his ineptitude.

There are plenty of reasonable, patriotic Republicans out there, and it's just not fair to lump them in with the more extreme echelons of the GOP. These are the kind of people who would defy McCarthy if they found themselves a suspect of Communist subversion in the 50s, who would tell him that he's nothing but a fear-mongering, power-hungry strongman in the game to line his own pockets.

This kind of rhetoric, from BOTH sides, is damaging bipartisanship severely. Go ahead an accuse me of "both-sideism", I don't care. You've got extremists on the right, the crazy a**holes who are stuck in the 19th century, with their neo-Confederate insurrectionist ambitions, the kind of people who take American patriotism to a toxic, unhealthy extreme. They worship Trump like some sort of cult leader, months after the election, they're still flying Trump flags and sporting Trump signs. Then you have the crazies on the left, the kind of d***heads who think that I should have to pay reparations for the crimes of my ancestors, proponents of that "critical race theory" bulls***(Yes, Ibram X.Kendi really said “The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination." that sounds pretty damn racist to me). These extremists are hypocrites who claim to care for the rights of the individual, but the reality is they don't give a damn about democracy, just advancing their own disgusting, oppressive agendas.

I once welcomed the future. Now, I fear it.

This man’s political trajectory is interesting. A two-term Republican President who supported ending segregation and expanding civil rights and the social safety net. As Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, he was the head honcho in charge of what today would perhaps be called punching Nazis in the face.

Eisenhower had a profound distaste for McCarthyism and also disliked Barry Goldwater, who was perhaps the first “movement conservative” in the Republican Party to run for President.

I understand there are different Republicans out there. I try to praise them when I can (Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, etc. — though I disagree with them on much else, I can commend them for taking a stand against Trump cultism).

But at a certain point we have to face the reality that Trump cultism is the animating force of the Republican Party these days. The few holdouts for reasonable classical conservatism aren’t driving the ship, nor are they even close.

So at what point do we compress those facts and lump all Republicans together — especially for purposes of a quick meme?

Well, in this case I decided to, because I’ve been called a Communist, and seen other liberal friends be called Communist merely for opening their mouths online, one too many times. That’s the perspective this meme comes from.

This meme was also informed by the fact I’ve tossed out “Joe McCarthy” on politics discussions only to have right-wing commenters tell me they think he was an unsung hero.

How do we talk politics without falling victim to generalization at some level? I’m still struggling with that. But to the extent modern-day McCarthyism animates the GOP of the present-day, it needs to be called out, logical fallacies notwithstanding.