Nope! Although McCarthy was correct, he wasn’t very charismatic and people didn’t like him. Trump has no such problem.......
Actually, I think ordinary Americans liked Joe McCarthy. It was the elites that hated him.
Red Badger: You are right about Joe McCarthy not being a “very charismatic character”. He was a mean SOB but as you said, he “was correct”. My late friend Stan Evan’s last book “Blacklisted by History” was, perhaps, the most extensively researched book on McCarthy and I watched as Stan (an old friend and publisher of one of my studies on the Left), did his research at the National Archives.
In fact, I helped him to understand one of the “lists” of communists in the government that he found. It was not a specific list, but one of US government employees during a certain period of time which included many who had been identified in congressional hearings as CPUSA members and a few who were id. Soviet spies, including Alger Hiss.
McCarthy, with the help of his very shrewd staff attorney, Roy Cohn, definitely vetted their information on who the people were who appeared before, SHOCK, his Senate. Permanent Investigations Committee SUBCOMMITTEE, not the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA - not the Communist inversion of House Un-American Activities Committee - HUAC).
HUAC as a term, like “McCarthyism”, was created by the Communist Party USA in order to smear the committees and the individuals on them who opposed and tried to expose communists/organizations/activities in the US and abroad.
This manifested itself in the early 1960’s with the CPUSA operation “Operation Abolition” re getting rid of HCUA (and the Senate equivalent, the Sen. Internal Security Subcommittee - SISS - of the Sen. Judiciary Committee).
Operation Abolition was created and led by a CPUSA front known over the years as the “National Committee to Abolish HUAC” and in 1969, it became the “National Committee to Abolish HUAC/HISC (House Internal Security Committee)”.
Later it became the “National Committee Against Repressive Legislation”, the Chicago chapter (Chicago Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights), containing a number of Obama/Axelrod friends and supporters (i.e. Don Rose, for one. CPUSA leader Richard Criley for another).
Oh, by the way, I was an undercover member of NCAHUAC/HISC and met the best CPUSA member/supporter attorneys in the country including William Kunstler and Arthur Kinoy, and Obama’s personal physician (later on), Dr. Quentin Young (id. CPUSA, Medical Committee for Human Rights, and Physicians for a National Health Plan - PNHP).
We really did have a PARTY at the March 1969 conference in DC (Dodge House). A full list of registered delegates/attendees can be found in the California State Senate Report on Un-American Activities (1970).
Getting back to McCarthy, he was somewhat heavy-handed in the way he handled his hearings but his information was correct. You have to look at the documentation and understand the character of the messenger. Documents stand up in court (except under the Obama/Holder/Lynch regime). They either are real (not forgeries) or not. They present information which needs to be properly evaluated, but their existence is valid.
The goal of the CPUSA and their supporters, including many leaders (over time) of the ACLU), is to, like Obama and Hillary, deny their existence or validity or context.
When you testify before Congress under oath, as I have in both Executive and Open sessions, your documents are vetted ahead of time (in many cases) and you have to give their provenance in detail (such as my Vietnam/Cambodia documents) and those I got from CPUSA/SWP “Hanoi Lobby” fronts during my undercover days.
Read Stan Evan’s book on McCarthy if you want to see a professional researcher/writer in action. It will be worth the cost and the time.
Stan - RIP, a lifelong freedom protector of America.