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It’s not uncommon for Donald Trump to complain about his perceived foes engaging in “McCarthyism.” As the former president sees it, to emulate the late Sen. Joe McCarthy and his demagogic tactics is to engage in obvious wrongdoing.
Occasionally, however, Trump’s allies have a very different perspective on the Wisconsin Republican and his scandalous methods. Consider Steve Bannon’s on-air commentary from late last week:
“What people forget is that the McCarthy hearings and the House Un-American Activities [Committee] were quite productive in turfing out communists, right? KGB communists that were deeply embedded in the State Department and other elements of the government, it should have gone further. ... The McCarthy hearings were extremely, extremely helpful.”
It was nearly a decade ago when Bannon complained about “pop culture” contributing to the idea that McCarthy was some kind of “villain.” Evidently, 10 years later, he hasn’t changed his mind.
Let’s not forget that Bannon isn’t alone on this. Revisiting our earlier coverage, it was shortly after Sen. Ted Cruz began his congressional career when a Dallas Morning News reporter told the Texas Republican that he’d been compared at times to Joe McCarthy. Cruz said that criticism “may be a sign that perhaps we’re doing something right,” which seemed like a curious response given the context.
Asked specifically, “Is McCarthy someone you admire?” Cruz wouldn’t answer. A few years later, a Cruz national security adviser said McCarthy was “spot on” about communists infiltrating the United States government in the 1950s.
In 2014, after his failed Republican Senate campaign in Missouri, then-Rep. Todd Akin compared himself to McCarthy — and he meant it in a good way.
As the House Republicans’ Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government moves forward, plenty of political observers are comparing the partisan effort to McCarthy and his panel on “un-American activities.”
It’s unsettling that some on the right might see such a comparison as praise.