Obsessions Then and Now

“The commies are everywhere” obsession of the early 1950s involved finding and rooting out communist-sympathetic people who held positions in our Federal Government and other institutions. It even included Hollywood actors like Will Geer – a.k.a. Grandpa Walton – who was blacklisted in the early 1950s for refusing to testify before the House Committee on Un-American activities.

The governmental concern was primarily with our Department of State, where officials like Alger Hiss¹ were suspected of maintaining active connections with the Soviet Union. Such a connection was fiercely disputed by Mr. Hiss and his political allies for many years, but was verified when USSR officials released records that revealed the truth of the charge.

At the height of the “red scare” of that time some politicians became preoccupied – possibly even obsessed – with rooting out the commies and giving them the boot. Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisconsin) – a.k.a. “Tail-gunner Joe” – became the most visible public face of the scare when Cold War tensions made the public fear widespread communist subversion. Senator McCarthy alleged that communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers had infiltrated the US federal government, universities, film industry, and elsewhere.

Ultimately, the senator went too far and was censured for abusing members of, the Senatorial committee formed to investigate whether or not he should be censured. The term “McCarthyism,” coined in 1950 as a catch-phrase for McCarthy’s practices, was later applied to similar anti-communist activities. Today, the term means demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents.

Of course, locating and expelling the infiltrated communists represented common sense then, as we were locked in a Cold War with the Soviet Union, whose leaders clearly did not mean us well. When USSR Chairman Nikita Khrushchev visited New York to speak at the United Nations, he banged his shoe on the lectern and declaimed, “We will bury you!” Young people my age, who didn’t know any better, thought he was just a semi-comic figure in an ill-fitting suit. But older folks knew he was a serious tough guy who held Stalingrad together during the Germans’ occupation, and eventually spearheaded their defeat. More knowledgeable Americans knew that Comrade Nikita meant what he said, and certainly intended to get it done.

But as they say, that was then and this is now. In my 70+ years of watching, studying and analyzing politics, I have never seen anything quite like the Democrats’ current obsession with former President Donald Trump: taking him to court for actions he took while in office; opposing his attempt to win a second term by any and all means; and (if possible) ruining him financially.

In the 1950s campaign to root out the commies, Democrats were perhaps a little less militant than Republicans. But both parties were aligned in the same direction on the issue. It was clearly a bi-partisan effort. Today, however, the obsession is almost exclusively with Democrats. Those few Republicans who originally opposed Mr. Trump have now mostly fallen silent, as they see the radical lengths Democrats are going in order to defeat their hated rival. Even some Democrats are starting to wonder what will be left of the presidency after they get done with Donald Trump.

With all this going on, the question hanging in the air is “Why?” We can easily see why the country went after red-sympathizers and outright spies during the Cold War. But why this obsession with a successful tycoon who has done so much for New York and other locales during his business career, plus a great deal of good for the country during his 1-term presidency?

Whole books are being written about the “get Trump” crusade, so a small article like this can hardly scratch the surface. Nevertheless, I thought it would be worthwhile to sketch out a brief outline of how I see the motivations for Democrats’ desperate campaign to stop one businessman who stepped up to help the country. Accordingly, I’ll list and discuss the main factors that I see.

(1) He’s not one of “us.” This means that Mr. Trump is not an “establishment” guy who goes along with Washington’s bi-partisan ways of thinking, governing, and spending. Dems tolerate most Republican presidents because they tend to be establishment comrades. Outsider Ronald Reagan was a notable exception, but he was so effective and smart, and had such great rapport with media and constituents, that the establishment types couldn’t touch him. Even liberal reporters loved his quick wit and personable manner.

Richard Nixon was an establishment guy, but leftist-progressives never forgave him for helping the House Un-American Activities Committee root out commies who held federal jobs. Politicians who had rubbed shoulders with Mr. Trump before his presidential run knew he would be completely independent and absolutely impossible to control. That’s why they started hammering him as soon as he stepped off that escalator in 2015.

(2) He’ll undo all of Obama/Biden’s good work. Mr. Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan gives Democrat true-believers chills because they know he will certainly bring the country back to common sense budgeting, spending, governance and foreign influence. Even his haters know that Donald Trump’s “Art of the Deal” rep is more than just words. It’s his business trademark. During his presidential term, while contending with contrived accusations of Russian “collusion,” he brought Middle East nations to the table to forge the Abraham Accords. These were bilateral agreements on Arab-Israeli normalization signed between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and between Israel and Bahrain.

It was only a start, but the Democrats’ “War, War and more War” faction knew that Mr. Trump’s vision, deal-making skill, and force of personality would almost certainly bring the Middle East and other parts of the globe into peaceful alignment if he gained a second term. He simply had to be stopped, by any means necessary. They stopped him in 2020 by running Cellar Boy Biden as a mystery candidate who promised “normality,” and by garnering enough mail-in ballots in key states. Now they’re trying to throw him in jail. What’s next? Assassination on his way to a meeting they’ve set up? (Don’t bet against it.)

(3) He’ll destroy the planet. Fighting climate change via massive federal funding on so-called “renewable energy,” and a gigantic national conversion to electric cars and trucks, is the keystone of Joe Biden’s plan to stabilize the climate and “fundamentally change” the country. Part of that plan calls for driving the cost of electricity-generation sky-high by completely eliminating the use of fossil fuels. We have abundant reserves of petroleum, natural gas and coal, but Joe Biden and his gang of radical-greenies want us to leave those valuable resources in the ground.

Changing over to all-electric transportation, at an estimated cost of $25 trillion, will be the biggest boondoggle in history. Even green true-believers know it won’t do a thing to stop climate change or stabilize temperatures. It’s nothing to do with climate, and it’s all about the money. Numerous players are lining up for the handouts. (Is this a great country, or what?)

(4) He’ll turn the country back to procreation, and wreck the transgender movement. The sex and gender wing of what used to be the party of families and children wants to defeat Donald Trump because they fear the influence that he and his beautiful wife will have on the country’s attitudes toward abortion and transgender modifications of children. New to this radical faction are numbers of doctors who stand to make megabucks on irreversible gender-modification surgeries. Opportunistic lawyers are also in the transgender cheering squad. They expect a litigation bonanza from young adults who realize (too late) that their ability to live normal lives and produce offspring was stolen from them.

The LGBTQ faction also cares nothing about normal adulthood or procreation. For them, it’s all about sex. I hear no Democrats voicing concern about America’s declining birthrate, which has reached a historic low of 1.64 children per woman – well below the “population replacement rate” of 2.1 children per woman. The 65 million children destroyed by 50 years of Supreme Court-sanctioned abortion mean nothing to Democrats. They want uncontrolled abortion, up to (and including) live birth. As a champion of healthy, intact families and protected children, Mr. Trump must be stopped.

(5) He’ll mess up the repopulation plan. Although Democrats don’t say so, it’s common knowledge that the 7+ million “undocumented” immigrants – previously known as illegal aliens – have been brought in to create a new Democrat voter-constituency. Illegals have been bused and flown all over the country – often in the dead of night – in an obviously planned effort intended to conceal their whereabouts from future efforts to find and deport them. Statistics show that the flood of illegals includes people from over 100 countries. Most have not been checked for disease or criminal records.

Unless some effort is made to stop it, we’ll soon see voter-rolls swelling with new voters whose citizenship status is either unchecked, unknown, or falsified. Democrats are counting on the illegal surge to help the party retain power for decades to come. Re-election of Donald Trump would block that plan, so he must be stopped.

(6) He doesn’t act “presidential.” This probably should have been #1 on the Why-list, as it’s the only reason I have ever heard from folks who dislike Mr. Trump. How many are willing to accept more of Joe Biden because they’re offended by Donald Trump’s brash New York style? I don’t know. But it shouldn’t be many, following the mess Good Old “Normal Joe” has made.

Democrats complained about Mr. Trump’s style because they expect a Republican president to smile and say, “Thank you, sir, may I have another?” whenever they smack him in the chops. Dems were outraged when Mr. Trump gave as good as he got – and often better. This produced a turbulent White House environment – loudly criticized by Democrats who actually helped to create it.

In other writings I have said picking a president is like picking a colonel to lead a dangerous, highly important military mission. What you want is a tough, no-nonsense guy who can get the job done; but a well-spoken, impeccably groomed pick from Central Casting, not so much. Dems want to stop Mr. Trump because they know he’ll do the job. It’s just not a job they want done.

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More could be written, but I hope this brief analysis is helpful to readers. Mr. Trump’s opponents cite his unpleasant style, but his policies are really the issue.

I doubt if my summary will please those who really hate Trump and are willing to accept Good Old Joe’s “normalcy.” Good luck to them. They’re going to need it.

“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20)

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1. Alger Hiss (1904 –1996) was an American government lawyer who was accused in 1948 of having spied for the USSR in the 1930s. The statute of limitations had expired for the espionage charge, but he was convicted of perjury in 1950 regarding his 1948 testimony. Before the espionage trial, Hiss was involved in the establishment of the United Nations, and served as both a US State Department official and as a UN official. In later life, he was a lecturer and author. Representative Richard Nixon launched his political career in hot pursuit of Hiss and other alleged secret Communists of the New Deal. This earned him the lasting enmity of leftist Democrats.