In response to Jon Tester mentioning allegations that came up during Congress’ process of interviewing military men who knew Ronny Jackson:
http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-threatens-montana-senator-tester-jackson-allegations-2018-4
“I have here a list…”
As if, if there were really anything he could say, he’d be shy about saying it.
What’s the debate: Is an Analogy to McCarthyism valid in this case? I’d say no. McCarthyism is about smearing someone or a large group of people by associating them with “a scary menace to our society”. This is just empty bluster, or a poor attempt to mimic what Trump is claiming Tester did: Throw out unsubstantiated allegations in order to prevent someone from attaining a political position.
Analogy fail.
Other than that John, you’re okay with Putin’s princess blackmailing an elected official?
Well, the odds are great it’s a complete lie by Trump and everyone knows it.
Trump could claim he has FBI footage showing Tester robbing a bank, and it wouldn’t hurt Tester one bit, since the allegation came from Trump.
Well, it’s a McCarthy Moment in the other sense, in that he’s constantly proving that he, at long last, has no decency.
But everyone knows that, so it’s hardly a revelation.
Survey Says: BZZZTTTT!!!
I have no idea whether or not Trump, or Tester, puts sugar on his porridge, but the question is not relevant.
Hardly a revelation, yes. But I was still shocked by the huge roar of approval Trump’s threat got from his crowd. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7kAlSb89gk
I’d say ‘what is wrong with those people?’–but I guess we all know the answer.
It’s not really blackmail if the supposed ‘information’ isn’t real. At most, it is a petty attempt at intimidation by a demogogue who thinks that everyone believes his bullshit just because he’s managed to con people into believing he is a billionaire.
Not really parallel to McCarthy, who tried to develop a general sense of fear and paranoia by claiming to have a non-existant list of 57 people in the State Department with affiliations to Soviet agents or the American Communist Party. No such list was ever presented and no one was named. In this case, Trump is trying to ‘counterpunch’ a specific individual by claiming the same about his perceived opponent as is being currently accused of Trump, only his tiny hands can’t…nope, not going to do it; it’s just too easy.
Wake me up when Trump does something ‘out of character’, like speaking respectfully to the family of a fallen soldier, or sayinbg something charitable about Nancy Pelosi, or just not going off on a rambling, stream-of-consciousness diatribe in the middle of a scripted speech.
Stranger
But then you’ll miss it.
I’ve narrowed it down to either lack of oxygen in the womb or the removal of lead from gasoline being one big lie.
I thought this would be about Trump having a go at vaccines, the McCarthy clan needs an image change
The Orange Oaf predates the removal of lead from gasoline and paint, so he could have drunk his fill of either or both.
What’s the crowd’s excuse? It looks to me like paint chips are a staple of the American diet these days.
The McCarthy moment has to do with using unsupported innuendo to strike at one’s (perceived) political enemies. Of course it’s a lie, but it’s classic McCarthy. The line continues unbroken.
I’m okay with that, especially since even if Trump accidentally manages to do something well or show compassion, he’ll turn around and tweet some shitty comment that will completely undermine it. “FIRED Jeff Sessions who was a TERRIBLE AG, very weak, couldn’t control Mueller!”
“Hired Sessions back as my new DIRECTOR of White National Security. Jeff is a GREAT GUY and he has my full support!”
Except McCarty stirred up ambigous fears about an unrevealed list of supposed threats in the State Department. Trump attacked a specific person over unspecified accusations. If you want to find a comparable parallel to McCarthyism, it is his fearmongering over Mexican immigrants raping and murdering Americans in wholesale fashion and Syrian refugees bringing radical Islamic terror into the country, neither of which are accusations supported by actual facts.
Stranger
Except nothing. It’s straight “I have papers!”. You can quibble about the target all you want, it’s the exact same tactic.
No it really isn’t. Every bullshit threat someone makes isn’t McCarthyism. It’s not quibbling because they aren’t remotely alike.
Why is it people just seem to refuse to see my point?
It was innuendo used to try to force an action without the slightest shred of proof. The fact that it was Tester instead of communists and that it had no chance of success is, again, completely immaterial.
Why do I need to even explain this?
No, it isn’t. McCarthy made broad accusations that the State Department and other federal government organizations were infiltrated by people on his supposed list of fifty-seven Communist sympathizers, and when later pressured to reveal specific names duriing the Tydings Committee hearings selected names from a previous investigation by the House Appropriations Committee, then later cited nine people who had been previously subjected to accusation and investigation. McCarthy was just generally trying to stir up public hysteria to keep his name in the news and there isn’t any indication that he had a personal or professional grievence with any of the named people.
In the case of Tester, on the other hand, Trump has a specific grievence against the senator for making accusations about the behavior of Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Veterans Affairs Ronny Jackson and has made apparently claims about Tester’s ethical fitness. To be fair, Tester has been the subject of many controversies about accepting campaign donations from lobbyists, lawyer groups, and financial institutions. However, given Trump’s proclivity to spew out whatever he knows (or thinks he knows) about anything in a rambling stream of consciousness, it would be out of character for him to hold back on revealing this supposed damaging new information, so it is a reasonable inference that Trump has no new information.
Trump has behaved in a McCarty-esque fashion in other ways, effectively stirring up public fears over immigration allowing rapists, murders, and terrorists into the country en masse; incurring economic damage due to trade agreements; claiming that the media establishment publishes lies and concocts “fake news” stories; and spinning conspiracy theories about voter fraud and scientific research. But in this case, he is ‘counterpunching’ against a specific opponent in his typically ineffectual fashion. It’s not McCarthyism in the sense of warning of some ambiguous, impending threat; he is just trying to undermine a critic.
Stranger
We don’t see your point because that isn’t what “McCarthyism” means.
Wikipedia starts with:
“McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of subversion or treason without proper regard for evidence.”
Not what Trump did. McCarthy accused multiple people of being and multiple institutions of being riddled with communists. Trump just made some vague threat of having some kind of dirt on some guy. And what action was McCarthy trying to force? Give it up, dude.