# Is Senator Mark Kelly finally our "Joseph Welch?" **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [December 3, 2025, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-senator-mark-kelly-finally-our-joseph-welch/1025355 "2025-12-03T02:54:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![RAWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/71e660/32.png) [@RAWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RAWDuke)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2025, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-senator-mark-kelly-finally-our-joseph-welch/1025355/1 "2025-12-03T02:54:39Z")
In 1954, Joseph Welch finally put down Joe McCarty’s campaign to purge communists from the US. “Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.” “Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?” > **[U.S. Senate: "Have You No Sense of Decency?"](https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/investigations/mccarthy-hearings/have-you-no-sense-of-decency.htm)** > > 1941: Have You No Sense of Decency? -- June 9, 1954 It’s not going to be nearly as quick this time around, but is Kelly finally to person to shut down this nonsense? I sure hope so… ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2025, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-senator-mark-kelly-finally-our-joseph-welch/1025355/2 "2025-12-03T03:05:12Z")
People have (rightfully) complained about the lack of spine among politicians trying to oppose Trump and his goons, and it seems like we’re seeing one. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2025, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-senator-mark-kelly-finally-our-joseph-welch/1025355/3 "2025-12-03T03:25:58Z")
Trumplicans, Republicans, and MAGA have no sense of decency. They _revel_ in their lack of decency. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2025, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-senator-mark-kelly-finally-our-joseph-welch/1025355/4 "2025-12-03T03:26:18Z")
> [@RAWDuke](#): > > It’s not going to be nearly as quick this time around, but is Kelly finally to person to shut down this nonsense? What nonsense? MAGA? When McCarthy was red-baiting, Eisenhower was president. I’m missing the similarity to a situation where the President is ruling by decree, as today. McCarthy’s December 1954 censure wasn’t just because of Joseph Welch. It was because in the course of 1954, McCarthy’s polling numbers collapsed. One brave decent man is not nearly enough to turn a country around. A similar polling collapse today may require a much worse economy. When Mike Johnson and John Thune join with Mark Kelly in calling for the impeachment and removal of Pete Hegseth for war crimes, then I’ll believe the end is getting close. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2025, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-senator-mark-kelly-finally-our-joseph-welch/1025355/5 "2025-12-03T03:28:20Z")
Welch later played the judge in Anatomy of a Murder directed by Otto Preminger and starring Jimmy Stewart. ---
**Author:** ![UDS1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e47774/32.png) [@UDS1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS1)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2025, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-senator-mark-kelly-finally-our-joseph-welch/1025355/6 "2025-12-03T03:42:07Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Trumplicans, Republicans, and MAGA have no sense of decency. They _revel_ in their lack of decency. This. Which means that, in today’s conditions, you can’t turn public opinion against Trumpery and Trumpistas by calling out the cruelty, the corruption, etc. The movement and its adherents are entirely open in their cruelty and corruption; these characteristics are a selling point, and they are already priced in to people’s views. Those who vote for Trumpery largely do so not because they haven’t noticed the cruelty and the corruption, but because they _like_ it. Which means that the challenge is not to show people that Trumpery is cruel and corrupt; it’s to get them to reevaluate their own attitudes to cruelty and corruption. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2025, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-senator-mark-kelly-finally-our-joseph-welch/1025355/7 "2025-12-03T04:26:05Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Trumplicans, Republicans, and MAGA This right here is what we English teachers call _repetition_. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2025, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-senator-mark-kelly-finally-our-joseph-welch/1025355/8 "2025-12-03T04:44:53Z")
Rhetorical Rule of Three. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2025, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-senator-mark-kelly-finally-our-joseph-welch/1025355/9 "2025-12-03T05:17:03Z")
Yeppers! Rule of Three is using three things to describe something. Johnny\_L.A was using the same term three times. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2025, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-senator-mark-kelly-finally-our-joseph-welch/1025355/10 "2025-12-03T05:18:47Z")
And people think I’m uneducated! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2025, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-senator-mark-kelly-finally-our-joseph-welch/1025355/11 "2025-12-03T05:37:48Z")
Like Beetlejuice? 😉 Seriously, I’ve been wondering if we’re going to see a Joseph Welch during the debacle that is the Trump administration. If Senator Kelly chooses to be today’s Joseph Welch, great. But he can’t be the only one. There are too many Trumplicans, Republicans, and MAGAs to whom the cruelty and corruption is the point. Unlike in Welch’s and McCarthy’s day, one voice cannot drown them out. There will have to be others. Senator Kelly may be the first of those, but I hope that he won’t be the last. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2025, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-senator-mark-kelly-finally-our-joseph-welch/1025355/12 "2025-12-03T06:26:32Z")
Heh. 😊 I love the rule of 3. It makes me happy. I feel like the tide is just beginning to turn a tiny bit. Hold your breath. Kimmel said Trump was TS-ing like every 2 minutes last night. 160 post of various crap. He’s falling asleep everywhere. Non-sensical in the cabinet meeting yesterday. More than usual. 🤞 ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2025, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-senator-mark-kelly-finally-our-joseph-welch/1025355/13 "2025-12-03T07:26:09Z")
The tide turned against McCarthy in part because, in those days, destroying American democracy was seen as a bad thing. Free speech, an independent judiciary, all the other modern political values, these were understood to be inherent to American freedom, and McCarthy was putting them at risk. This was clearly recognized as negative. … The situation has changed. Not only do the MAGA radicals revel in their cruelty and ignorance, they are quite open about annihilating democracy. It literally is what it says on the tin. They all know exactly what they’re buying. There is zero traction to be achieved against MAGA in appealing to abstract democratic ideals. Democracy is their enemy and its destruction is their objective. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2025, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-senator-mark-kelly-finally-our-joseph-welch/1025355/14 "2025-12-03T18:39:56Z")
Some of the comparisons here are too literal. Welch challenged McCarthy’s actions at a time when McCarthy’s support was already waning. The charge these days against Trumpism is not lack of decency. Kelly is challenging Trumpism as cowardly, hypocritical, and anti-democratic. The thing to be hopeful about with Kelly’s stand is not that he will convince Trumpists, but that he will wake up the sleeping middle to the horrors that are going on around them. > [@PhillyGuy](#): > > One brave decent man is not nearly enough to turn a country around. This is probably true. But you do not step on the first one just because he is only one. You do not step on the hope that is generated because, at long last, here is some open fighting back. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2025, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-senator-mark-kelly-finally-our-joseph-welch/1025355/15 "2025-12-04T01:24:29Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > You do not step on the hope that is generated because, at long last, here is some open fighting back. I know that lots and lots of politicians on both sides of the divide who like that fighting metaphor, but I do not. The video reinforcing need to disobey unlawful orders was IMHO a measured response to an administration rife with illegality. It had no fighting words. However, if progressives want to see the six of them as fighters, and like them for it, I suppose that’s good because they, including my Rep. Chrissy Hoolahan, are moderates who I do not want primaried. Or do you see Kelly as a fighter but not the other five? P.S. Here’s some good speculation as to why they came out with the video when they did: [Mark Kelly’s Double Tap](https://www.offmessage.net/p/mark-kellys-double-tap) > [@](#): > > It’s seems pretty obvious at this point that Sens. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) and the other Dems from the “don’t obey illegal orders” viral post already knew about the Trump DoD’s Sept. 2 “double tap” strike when they produced their video two weeks ago. > > I can’t prove it, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2025, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-senator-mark-kelly-finally-our-joseph-welch/1025355/16 "2025-12-04T15:48:51Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > Or do you see Kelly as a fighter but not the other five? My remarks were referencing his speech in response to the attack against him specifically, which I thought were the genesis for this thread. That assumption on my part may or may not be accurate, OP was not specific about why Kelly might be “our ‘Joseph Welch’” and I saw this thread after watching part of Kelly’s speech. My remarks were not about the original video of the 6 legislators, although I also support that. Kelly’s speech was specifically fighting back against the administrations attempt to muzzle him with threats of prosecution, so I think in this case the fighting metaphor is appropriate. ---
**Author:** ![RAWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/71e660/32.png) [@RAWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RAWDuke)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2025, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-senator-mark-kelly-finally-our-joseph-welch/1025355/17 "2025-12-04T18:28:58Z")
I’d been thinking over the last 10 years that SOMEBODY is eventually going to stand up and ask “WTF is WRONG with you?” in regards to Trump and his cult. We’ve had plenty of social media attacks, lots of sound bites, plenty of opinion articles, but I can’t really recall anybody like Kelly who’s essentially saying “bring it on!” Nobody in Congress, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2025, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-senator-mark-kelly-finally-our-joseph-welch/1025355/18 "2025-12-04T18:35:48Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > Like Beetlejuice? 😉 I’ve been hoping more for something like the scene from the decathlon in _Billy Madison_. “What you just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. I award you no points, and may god have mercy on your soul.” Biden could have used it during his disastrous debate, and maybe it wouldn’t have been so disastrous. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2025, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-senator-mark-kelly-finally-our-joseph-welch/1025355/19 "2025-12-04T18:40:26Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > Biden could have used it during his disastrous debate, and maybe it wouldn’t have been so disastrous. Trump would have interrupted him, unlike Billy Madison, and it wouldn’t have worked nearly as well. Unfortunately. Because that whole speech could have definitely applied in that debate.