SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2 , 2019. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A
M
cCarthyism was on bold display this week as
President Trump’s right-wing media posse
went on the attack against Army Lt. Col.
Alexander Vindman, who testified in the
House impeachment inquiry. But the stench of McCar-
thyism was in the air long before this week.
The term “McCarthyism,” by way of background,
originated in a March 29, 1950, Post editorial cartoon
by Herbert Block — better known as Herblock — that
showed four Republicans tugging and pushing a
frightened GOP elephant toward a shaky stack of
buckets of tar, topped by a bursting tar barrel labeled
“McCarthyism.” Asked the elephant: “You mean I’m
supposed to stand on that?”
Another backgrounder: McCarthyism is associated
with Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy (R-Wis.), who rose to
prominence in the 1950s on his false claims that a
deep state of communists had clandestinely infiltrat-
ed the State Department. McCarthy’s slimy tactic of
tarring government employees with accusations of
disloyalty and subversion didn’t die with him in 1957.
That became evident this week when Trump’s
right-leaning allies learned that Vindman, a White
House national security official and decorated vet-
eran, would deliver damaging testimony in the House
impeachment inquiry. They, in homage to McCarthy,
used Vindman’s birthplace to question his patriotism
— a contrivance as absurd as it was offensive.
The facts: Vindman came to this country in 1979 at
age 3, in flight with his father, two brothers and his
grandmother from the then-Soviet republic of
Ukraine. (His mother died before the trip.) They
arrived with little, but Vindman made a lot out of it:
ROTC and a college degree, a Harvard graduate
degree in Russian, Eastern European and Central
Asian studies, military service in South Korea, Ger-
many and Iraq — where he earned a Purple Heart,
courtesy of a roadside bomb. He served stints as
foreign area officer in Russia and Kyiv, and was the
Russian expert for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff.
Which caused John Yoo, a former George W. Bush
administration official, to say on a Fox News program
how “astounding” it was for Vindman to have report-
edly been talking with Ukrainian officials seeking
advice on dealing with the Trump administration’s
confusing two-headed policy toward them. Stated
Yoo, darkly, “Some people might call that espionage.”
Yoo was responding to Trump-follower Laura In-
graham, the show’s host, who was musing about
Vindman’s military background, language skills and
job duties: “Here we have a U.S. national security
official who is advising Ukraine while working inside
the White House, apparently against the president’s
interest.” “Isn’t that,” she added, “kind of an interest-
ing angle on the story?” “Interesting”? Not as much as
her slurring of Vindman’s allegiance.
Sean P. Duffy, a former congressman newly hired by
CNN to vocalize White House talking points, was
blatant in his McCarthy imitation.
“Vindman,” declared Duffy, had an “affinity for the
Ukraine” over the United States because that’s where
he was born. Not stopping there, Duffy was at a loss as
to whose interests Vindman was serving. “It seems
very clear that he is incredibly concerned about
Ukrainian defense. I don’t know that he’s concerned
about American policy.” Asked whether he believes
Vindman is looking out for America first, a smiling
Duffy said, “I don’t know.”
This much, however, is clear: McCarthyism fits Yoo,
Ingraham and Duffy like a glove.
Not to be left out, Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph
W. Giuliani — to whom a moment’s thought is a
moment wasted — jumped in with a tweet asserting
Vindman was “advising two gov’s,” an allusion to dual
loyalties — and a damnable lie.
Trump, for his part, tried to discredit Vindman’s
deeply damaging testimony, charging that Vindman is
a “Never Trumper witness,” which has no basis in fact.
But Trump’s use of facts? As unlikely as a rat falling in
love with a cat.
As disgusting as this episode is, it would be
delusional to treat the smearing of Vindman’s patrio-
tism as something unique.
Branding political opponents as disloyal and un-
American is a Trump staple.
He declared that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
(D-Calif.) “hates the United States of America” be-
cause of her impeachment inquiry against him.
He has accused Pelosi and House Intelligence
Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) of
“treason.”
He called Democrats who didn’t applaud him at his
2018 State of the Union “treasonous” and “un-
American.”
Of Trump’s many flaws is his assumption of himself
as the nation.
Other countries have gone down that disastrous
road. That’s not the way we do it. In America, public
officials “swear to support and defend the Constitu-
tion” — not Donald Trump.
Americans “pledge allegiance to the Flag... and to
the Republic for which it stands,” not allegiance to
Donald Trump.
With the mind-set that he, Donald Trump, and the
United States of America are one and the same,
McCarthyism takes root and flourishes.
This president must learn that our fidelity is to the
nation — not to him.
Congress can and should remind him of that.
[email protected]COLBERT I. KINGTrump’s modern
McCarthyism
BY HENRY OLSENP
resident Trump’s campaign ad that unex-
pectedly aired on Wednesday during Game 7
of the World Series should worry Democrats.
In 30 seconds, it effectively made the argu-
ment that could reelect him — “Trump: Not Perfect,
Just Better.”
Trump’s ad starts by reciting the most important
accomplishments of his first term. It touted the hot
labor market, arguing that his administration has
created “6 million new jobs” and “500,000 new
manufacturing jobs.” It then turned to immigration,
contending he has “cut illegal immigration in half ”
and “obliterated ISIS,” noting the death of Islamic
State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. This short
synopsis hit the things his voters care about, as polls
generally show that Trump gets relatively high
marks for his management of the economy and that
Republicans have long ranked immigration and
terrorism as two of their top issues.
It then turns to Democrats, displaying pictures of
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and House
Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff
(Calif.). The ad’s narrator castigates them for focus-
ing on impeachment and “phony investigations”
rather than addressing “the real issues.” It concludes
by returning to Trump, saying Democrats aren’t
stopping him. It ends with the line that shows an
unusual degree of self-awareness for the famously
bombastic Trump: “He’s no Mister Nice Guy, but
sometimes it takes a Donald Trump to change
Washington.”
The ad’s effectiveness was immediately noted by
some leading Democrats. David Plouffe, one of
former president Barack Obama’s top campaign
gurus, even tweeted that the ad was “quite strong.”
It’s always a good sign when even your opponents
say your punch landed.
The closing line is the key to the ad’s effectiveness.
It turns Trump’s biggest negative — himself — into a
positive. Yes, he’s a (insert derogatory term here),
but he’s our (derogatory term). His blunt toughness,
the campaign will argue, is exactly what the country
needs as he forces Washington to change against its
will. Conservative writer Victor Davis Hanson has
been making this argument for years, analogizing
Trump to the gunfighter in a movie Western who the
town knows is unsavory but who has the tools to
clean it up. The fact that the campaign is now
making it shows that staffers know they need to
make lemonade out of the lemons Trump has given
them.
This campaign will grow only sharper as Demo-
crats push impeachment and investigation in Wash-
ington while their primary season descends into
bitter warfare. Assuming the job market stays strong
and the country remains untouched by terrorism,
Trump will simply strengthen the contrast between
his accomplishments and the unruly mob he is
fighting. Once a nominee is selected, Trump will run
a classic fear campaign to demonize his opponent as
a dangerous person whose election the United
States cannot risk. As long as he keeps noting that
he’s not perfect, his argument that he’s just better
could easily resonate with people open to voting for
him.
Trump opponents will howl, but they’re not the
president’s target audience. He knows that nearly
half the country will never vote for him, and so he
makes no concession to their views. Instead, he is
ruthlessly focusing on improving turnout among his
backers while directly talking to the 5 to 10 percent
of the electorate whose votes will decide the election.
Those people — Americans who disapprove of
Trump and still are leery about impeachment —
could decide that the devil they know is better than
the devil they don’t.
A recent set of polls showed how crucial this
group is. Sponsored by Siena College and the New
York Times, these polls showed a majority of voters
in six key battleground states backed an impeach-
ment inquiry but oppose Trump’s removal. This was
the case in every state surveyed, even in Democratic-
leaning states such as Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Trump’s task is to persuade these voters to continue
to oppose removal and then transform that belief
into eventual support.
Acknowledging his flaws, even obliquely, is the
key element in this effort. Don’t be surprised if the
president continues to do this in carefully scripted
interviews with fans such as Fox News’s Sean
Hannity and makes a mea culpa part of his rally
stump talk. Coupling that with a sustained effort to
focus on issues and calls for cooperation after his
inevitable acquittal by the Senate could easily turn
the tables on the Democrats and Trump-haters who
think they finally caught their prey.
Good pitchers know how to set up batters for the
strikeout, showing them one pitch repeatedly before
offering up a pitch they can’t handle. Trump’s
confrontational approach has habituated Demo-
crats into expecting constant insults and hardball
tweets. If he now gives them the political equivalent
of a change-up, don’t be shocked when they swing,
miss and mutter angrily to themselves as they head
back to the dugout in failure.
Twitter: @henryolsenEPPCHENRY OLSENDemocrats should
be nervous about
Trump’s 2020 plan
W
hen you have great and unmatched
wisdom like me, it’s not so hard to see the
beginnings of things, and it is not hard to
see the ends of things, either. Pretty easy,
actually! Everything is easy for me because I have a
great brain, and I am sorry for Joan Didion and the
others leaving New York who we all know didn’t
have it so easy. Not so easy for Joan! She could
remember when New York began for her, but not
when it ended. I remember, though. But it’s okay. We
can’t all remember!
When I got to New York, it was a wonderful place,
I couldn’t believe it. You could put a red line around
anything you wanted. Really, I said, can we do that?
They said, oh yes, you can do anything. New York
City was my oyster, but better. Oysters I don’t like so
much. They’re cold and nasty, don’t you think? But
people say that cities are like them, or maybe even
that the world is like them. New York was better, like
a hard, shiny steak. I ran a full-page ad in thenewspaper calling for the death penalty for the
Central Park Five — they call them the Exonerated
Five, but I didn’t — I said, can you believe it? They let
me do it! New York!
New York has so many things that would dazzle a
little boy from Queens. I hear it has a subway, which
is so nasty. It has the Empire State Building, a tiny,
bad building without a Trump logo on it. It has
Central Park, which is full of germs and people, and
it has the Statue of Liberty, a big lady who doesn’t
look so good, not so good after all these years, a bit
green in the face, and the things she says are not so
smart. Not smart, folks!
But it’s okay. It’s okay, New York City.
I did not leave for a long while because I was in
love with New York. I do not mean love in the gross
way you feel inside that makes you weak. I mean
love like the city begged and pleaded with me, the
city wanted to give me everything, they would catch
and kill the bad stories for me. Here I was inManhattan.
I remember when my publicist and I first moved
to Manhattan. We needed new faces. All the old
faces of contractors were upset, they whined and
sobbed; they said, pay me, pay me, please. But I
didn’t pay them. New York was a wonderful place, a
brass jungle where dreams were made, where you
did not have to pay the people who built the dreams.
But the city changed. They say I changed, but you
know. I remember. One morning I woke up and
something was different. There was a time when
there were so many mobsters in my office that I
worried about inviting cameras in to film the first
season of “The Apprentice.” Where everything was
brass, or at least brazen. When the smell of graft rose
up from the whatever the river is called, and it was a
good place to have a family, to not change your kids’
diapers in. Did the city change, or did I, or did the
tax rate, or did the ongoing prosecution by the
SDNY?So I said, should I leave? And the people cried.
A man came up to me on the street; he said, “Sir,
you can’t leave, you can’t leave New York!” And he
was crying. He said, “It’s going to be carnage if you
leave, sir, it’s going to be bloody, painful carnage.”
And I said, “I know, believe me, it’s going to be bad,
but I have to do it! What can I say? They don’t tax
you so good here in New York City. They don’t treat
you very nice.” I said, “Maybe treat me nice, and I
will stay.” But they didn’t treat me nice, and now I
have to go.
Melania said, “New York was no mere city. It was
instead an infinitely romantic notion, the mysteri-
ous nexus of all love and money and power, the
shining and perishable dream itself.” I agree with
Melania, so I am relocating from Trump Tower to
Mar-a-Lago. Very bad for the city! But that is how it
is. It used to be better. It used to be great, like
America.
Twitter: @petridishesALEXANDRA PETRI‘Goodbye to New York,’ by Donald Trump
DRAWING BOARDBY MIKE SMITH FOR THE LAS VEGAS SUNBY OHMAN FOR THE SACRAMENTO BEEBY LUCKOVICH FOR THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTIONBY HORSEY FOR THE SEATTLE TIMES