America has witnessed a demagoguery before . Understanding the direction of the candidacy of Donald Trump you have to dive deeper into a dark past. There was no bigger demagoguery than the Senator from Wisconsin.His lies destroyed lives and coined a term that still exists in politics today.
Senator Joe McCarthy went on a communist witch hunt. He proclaimed that he had a list of people who were working in the state department as spies for the communist party. There was no basis for this claim, no evidence to present other than the mouth of Senator McCarthy. He accused the democratic party of being " a bedfellow for international communism". America turned into an anti-communist hysteria over accusations by Senator McCarthy. People started accusing their neighbors of being communist and people lost their jobs because of their political beliefs.
In March of 1954, a journalist named Edward R. Murrow took on McCarthy. Stating that the actions of McCarthy have alarmed our allies and given comfort to our enemies. Senator McCarthy basically accused the journalist of helping the communist cause. McCarthy said and I quote " If I am giving comfort to my enemies I shouldn't be in the senate if Mr. Murrow is giving comfort to our enemies he should not be brought into the home of Americans by the Columbia Broadcasting System". His chief council was Roy Cohn, this was Cohn tactic. When they attack you, retaliate with something much worse. It doesn't matter if its true or not. Unfortunately telling the same lie leads some people to start believing it.
America eventually had enough of the Junior Senator from Wisconsin. During the Army-McCarthy hearings, a lawyer representing the US Army against Senator McCarthy was the next one to take on the senator. This time, McCarthy did not win. A handful of Republicans turned on him and voted to censor him.
McCarthyism is a term that exists in our political landscape as Roy Cohn would advise another. 20 years later Roy Cohn meets a very young Donald Trump. Cohn introduced Trump to Manafort and Stone. This time is worse though this present day Joe McCarthy compared a reporter's questions to her menstrual cycle, mocked a disabled reporter and called for a ban on all of one race from entering the country. The whole birther movement is classic McCarthyism when you create a big enough lie and repeat it. He also tries to destroy the reputation of every journalist who calls him out. Even to go far as to say a judge can't do his job because of his ethnicity.
The question now becomes do we have an Edward R. Murrow to stand up to him or a Mr. Welch type figure to ask him if he has any sense of decency. In the end, Republicans turned on McCarthy as we are seeing with Trump. The problem is McCarthy never ran for the Presidency much less get the nomination. McCarthyism is a ghost that we hope to never see but it always shows its ugly head. Good Night and Good Luck.