Inactive: Thomas C. Reeves

Thomas C. Reeves

The Ugliest Chapter in the History of the Republican Party (And Why It's Worth Remembering Now)

In 1948, Republicans were confident that they could not lose the presidential election. The polls showed Thomas Dewey easily defeating incumbent Harry S. Truman; indeed, the lead was such that pollsters quit the race weeks before people went to the polls. In November, the G.O.P. suffered shock when Truman pulled off an upset victory. To this day, American history textbooks routinely show the photograph of a jubilant Truman holding up the front page of the reactionary Chicago Tribune reporting his defeat.

What followed the upset was the ugliest chapter in the history of the Republican Party. Intensely frustrated over being denied the White House for fifteen years, and vowing to use any methods at their disposal, G.O.P. leaders employed Cold War frustrations to their advantage and launched an assault upon their political opponents that came to be known as the Second Red Scare. While the roots of the “Reds in high places” campaign can be found in the early Truman years, the full-scale attack upon the administration and upon Democrats and liberals in general burst onto the political scene after the election of 1948. It took Senator Joe McCarthy a while to grasp what was happening and turn it to his advantage. But in early 1950 his sweeping accusations and reckless tactics, soon called "McCarthyism," achieved worldwide attention, and the attack on “Commiecrats” became the major theme in American politics. It helped the G.O.P. win in 1952. So powerful was the vicious slander, however, that even the Eisenhower victory could not immediately stop it. (Yes, there were Reds in high places, but McCarthy and his allies were almost entirely unaware of the genuine articles.) Historians have been arguing ever since about the overall impact of the Second Red Scare, but few deny that it was considerable.

I wonder if in our own time the Left, represented by the Democratic Party, isn’t suffering from the sort of trauma that gripped the G.O.P. in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Millions on the Left were outraged by the impeachment of Bill Clinton. Reexamine some of the wild and almost violent language employed during that crisis. And then came the upset election of 2000 and the near hysterical hatred of George W. Bush that followed. It isn’t that he was merely wrong to go into Iraq, says Senator Ted Kennedy; Bush planned and executed the war for purely political reasons (and thus is a liar and a traitor). Highly active in the John Kerry campaign, Kennedy declared on March 5 that the Republican administration was guilty of “pure unadulterated fear-mongering” and said that “no president who misleads the country on the need for war deserves to be re-elected.”

The Left is extremely agitated about the upcoming election. At a Kerry rally the other day, the audience booed and hissed at the very mention of Vice President Cheney. The sudden drive for homosexual marriage, the fears about confirming conservative judges, the terror about a possible repeal of Roe V. Wade (or constraining any form of sexual license) and the like have fueled the Culture War to a fever pitch. Frustrations over the war in Iraq add to the tension and are being exploited by Democrats throughout the country. John Kerry, who has a long history of voting against defense spending, now contends that the Administration is failing to properly equip our troops. The major media, having moved considerably to the Left since the McCarthy years, are intensifying the tension, routinely demonizing the president and the G.O.P. in general. The 24-hour-a-day news stations threaten to drive the nation, or at least the media moguls themselves, into a frenzy over the next nearly eight months before the election.

The contest appears, at this very early stage, to be a neck and neck race. What if the Democrats lose? Might we not expect an explosion of such irresponsibility as we have not seen since 1948? Can you imagine, say, Ted Kennedy and Tom Daschle politely returning to their Senate duties? Would Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi meekly submit to the will of the electorate? Would the Deaniacs and Naderites go quietly about their own business? Would America’s campuses be more tolerant of the politically incorrect? Would Hollywood cheerily acknowledge the strength of American conservatism and begin to make films without obscenity, blasphemy, and national self-hatred? And what about judicial activists, the New York Times and its many wanabees, C.B.S. News, and Newsweek? Would we not see a ferocious attack from all the ranks of the Left that would intensify the Culture War and possibly tear the country apart to a degree that we haven’t seen since the Civil War?

There is, in short, a case for hoping that Democrats win in November. The victory would surely stop a new and perhaps more deadly form of McCarthyism in its tracks. The larger question, however, is whether or not this country can survive a victory of the Left. Now that’s a question that needs some responsible debate.


Posted on Monday, March 8, 2004 at 8:47 AM 

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