The president’s knowledge of American history is simply abysmal. He throws around terms without knowing what they mean or understanding their proper historical context.
The phrase “witch hunt” was last seen bandied about in the 1950’s under McCarthyism and the House Un-American Activities Committee. The committee’s name tells you what you need to know about its purpose and tone.
It was the right-wing of the Republican Party that supported fishing expeditions and witch-hunts, intimidating, slandering, and criminalizing people for their political beliefs.
When World War II ended the GOP remembered how they had suffered for four terms under a Democratic president.
They were ready to turn the hands of time back on the American clock, especially as regards domestic policies.
The Republicans were anti-labor and they were not champions of equality for African-American and other minorities.
This McCarthy Era included an up and coming young star of the GOP named Richard Nixon.
(His resignation in shame and humiliation for having corrupted the presidency was more than twenty years in the future.)
Witch hunts are conducted by people in power against their enemies and politically weak groups they can scapegoat without fear of much pushback.
Rulers, presidents, kings, queens, emperors, generals, dictators and tyrants are seldom the target of a witch hunt.
They are the ones who have the power to instigate a witch hunt to distract people from their social and economic hardships. Feeding Christians to lions was entertainment in Roman times.
In this sense, scapegoating and witch-hunting are virtually indistinguishable; the two terms are often used inter-changeably.
Joe McCarthy scapegoating communists was not much different from Hitler scapegoating Jews.
When McCarthy abused his investigative powers to include anyone who criticized him–or dared defend their right of free speech and assembly–that’s when his witch hunt became obsessive.
For some insane reason (perhaps found deep in the bottom of a bottle) he thought he could question the patriotism of the Army and get away with it.
A single individual was easy pickings for one of two charges—(typically perjury or “contempt of Congress”) but the Army was no 98 pound weakling; it was a well-established institution and no easy pushover.
If you’ve ever seen the Army-Navy football game, you get a pretty good idea of the stubborn strength of those patriotic young men who make up the armed services.
They are commanded by seasoned and battle-tempered officers, many of them richly decorated for distinguished service and heroism.
One boozehound Senator from Wisconsin had fatally erred; he picked on the wrong guy.
The Senator had met his match and the tide began to turn. Senator Symington hit home hard with his question “Senator, have you no shame?”
The anti-communist hysteria finally peaked and Joe wasn’t able to revive his fear-mongering.
Eventually he was censured by the U.S. Senate and stripped of his right to speak for having brought disgrace upon that historic chamber—an ironic if fitting outcome for a man who in his heyday made so many people afraid to speak.
In word association games today, if one historian says “witch hunt” the other is sure to say “Joe McCarthy”. That’s how closely the two terms are intertwined!
The 1950’s provide an apt model for comparing what President Trump is doing today with what McCarthy was doing way back then. Trump is behaving like Senator Joe McCarthy.
Is it merely coincidence that a lawyer named Roy Cohn first emerged during McCarthyism and later became a lawyer, advisor, and mentor of Trump’s? (The president openly attributes his blustery combative manner to lessons he learned from Cohn, who later in life was disbarred in New York State.)
Trump’s already scapegoated immigrants (whether Hispanic or Muslim) but now he claims that he is the victim, not the perpetrator, of witch-hunting tactics.
It would be like Joe McCarthy saying he was the victim, not the instigator, of McCarthyism!
Like the true narcissist he is, nothing is ever Trump’s fault.
He adamantly refuses to take responsibility for any of his actions when they backfire on him: if something doesn’t go well, it is always someone else’s fault and never his own.
An egomaniac like that will say or do anything to wriggle off the hook and dodge the accusing finger. He tells lies without compunction or conscience.
He contradicts himself frequently as he stumbles backward in his haste to get away from the facts. He dodges questions that make him uncomfortable.
He blames others at an incredible pace; he appears incapable of understanding that at the root of his problems there is only one person to be held accountable: himself.
When he lies, those are his lies and no one else’s!
Let us go farther back in time. Let us re-visit the historical era when the term “witch hunt” referred to “witches”; it had not yet added the connotation of modern political “scapegoating”.
The two-word phrase meant exactly what it said: it was a time to hunt for witches.
Who were these witches? These were women allegedly able to cast spells on people.
They were accused of making weird things happen; they were blamed for unfortunate or unusual occurrences in the lives of people, including natural catastrophes.
A woman accused of being a witch could be imprisoned, put on trial and condemned to be hanged or burned alive at the stake.
The notion of “trial” is used loosely here, and gets even looser the farther back in time we travel.
One method was to have the accused reach into a pot of boiling water to pluck out a stone. If the skin healed well, she was innocent.
In the Witch Trials of Salem, Massachusetts the evidence presented included spectral evidence or spectral dreaming:
to wit, if an accuser dreamed of the accused as being with the man in black or with a black cat (considered a “familiar” of the devil) this was evidence of her being guilty of witchcraft!
Luckily for the future of America, this was the last series of trials to allow “spectral evidence”.
The Massachusetts courts would prohibit it after these trials ended but not in time to save the lives of nineteen women and one man.
Still, progressive is relative; the death count could have gone much higher. There were two hundred accused “witches” in jail at the time the trials were brought to an abrupt halt.
Luckily, someone not too bright made the miscalculation of accusing the Governor’s own wife!
The Governor did not like that, apparently, and he abruptly shut down the proceedings.
The remaining “witches” were released while “spectral evidence” was prohibited in future court proceedings.
We’re not sure of the exact reason but probably something about such testimony not really having an evidentiary foundation in physical reality.
Decide for yourself whether the president is the victim of a witch-hunt or a crazy man flinging out wild accusations against his critics.
His accusations grow more bizarrely unrelated to reality as he loses his way and forgets how to behave normally, sensibly, and reasonably.
Donald Trump a witch? Hardly. But an impeachable madman? Yes, possibly yes!
