Sophie Lee from an online publication called Cultured Magazine asked for a recommendation of “one book that helped you understand the moment we’re living through and a few sentences on why.” The responses are here. They used a brief extract of what I sent them. Below is the full version, based on a post from 2016:
Richard Rovere was a journalist who wrote about politics at the New Yorker magazine for many years. His 1959 book, Senator Joe McCarthy, is a vivid telling of an important moment in American political history by someone who was there at the time.
“He built . . . a coalition of the aggrieved—of men and women not deranged but affronted by various tendencies over the previous two or three decades . . .”
That’s political reporter Richard Rovere in his 1958 classic, “Senator Joe McCarthy.” I hate to draw an analogy between McCarthy and Donald Trump because it seems so obvious . . . but I happened to be reading Rovere’s book back in 2016 and came across so many passages that reminded me of Trump, I had to share.
Here are a few:
“He was a fertile innovator, a first-rate organizer and galvanizer of mobs, a skilled manipulator of public opinion, and something like a genius at that essential American strategy: publicity.”
“Intimations, allegations, accusations of treason were the meat upon which this Caesar fed. He could never swear off.”
“The Gallup Poll once tested his strength in various occupational groups and found that he had more admirers among manual workers than in any other category—and fewest among business and professional people.”
“Because McCarthyism had no real grit and substance as a doctrine and no organization, it is difficult to deal with as a movement. Adherence was of many different sorts. There were those who accepted McCarthy’s leadership and would have been happy to see him President. There were others who were indifferent to his person but receptive to what he had to say about government. There were others still who put no particular stock in what he had to say and even believed it largely nonsense but felt that he was valuable anyway.”
“McCarthy drew into his following most of the zanies and zombies and compulsive haters who had followed earlier and lesser demagogues in the fascist and semifascist movements of the thirties and forties. . . . But this was really the least part of it. McCarthy went far beyond the world of the daft and the frenzied—or, to put the matter another way, that world was greatly enlarged while he was about.”
“In his following, there were many people who counted for quite a bit in American life—some because of wealth and power, some because of intelligence and political sophistication. He was an immediate hit among the Texas oilmen, many of whom were figures as bizarre and adventurous in the world of commerce and finance as he was in the world of finance. . . . And there were intellectuals and intellectuals manque whose notions of Realpolitik had room for just such a man of action as McCarthy.”
“L’etat, c’est moi, legibus solutus, and I Am the Law. He and the country were one and the same, synonymous and interchangeable.”
We see echoes of this, not merely in Trump’s own statements, but also from his supporters.
Back to Rovere:
It was a striking feature of McCarthy’s victories, of the surrenders he collected, that they were mostly won in battels over matters of an almost comic insignificance. His causes celebres were causes ridicules. . . .
Yet the antic features of McCarthyism were essential ones. For McCarthyism was, among other things, but perhaps foremost among them, a headlong flight from reality. It elevated the ridiculous and ridiculed the important. It outraged common sense and held common sense to be outrageous. It confused the categories of form and value. It made sages of screwballs and accused wise men of being fools. It diverted attention from the moment and fixed it on the past, which it distorted almost beyond recognition.
On the ravages of demagogy and its flight from reality, Thucydides wrote:
The meaning of words had no longer the same relation to things but was changed by them at they thought proper. Reckless daring was held to be courage, prudent delay was the excuse of a coward; moderation was the disguise of unmanly weakness; to know everything was to do nothing. Frantic energy was the true quality of a man. . . . He who succeeded in a plot was deemed knowing, but a still greater master in craft was he who detected one.
McCarthy, then, was of the classic breed. For all the black arts that he practiced, his natural endowments and his cultivated skills were of the very highest order. His tongue was loose and always wagging; he would say anything that came into his head and worry later, if at all, about defending what he had said.
And this:
“There has never been the slightest reason to suppose that he took what he said seriously or that he believed any of the nonsense he spread.”
“He was a vulgarian by method as well as, probably, by instinct. . . . If he did not dissemble much, if he did little to hide from the world the sort of human being he was, it was because he had the shrewdness to see that this was not in his case necessary. . . . In general, the thing he valued was his reputation for toughness, ruthlessness, even brutality. . . . And this sort of thing was always well received by his followers.”
“While other politicians would seek to conceal a weakness for liquor or wenching or gambling, McCarthy tended to exploit, even to exaggerate, these wayward tastes. He was glad to have everyone believe he was a drinker of heroic attainments, a passionate lover of horseflesh, a Clausewitz of the poker table, and a man to whom everything presentable in skirts was catnip. (When a good-looking woman appeared as committee witness, McCarthy, leering, would instruct counsel “to get her telephone number for me” as well as the address for the record.)”
And we’re still only on page 52.
The characteristics that Trump particularly seems to share with McCarthy are boastfulness and self-focus; willingness to boldly lie about important things and, perhaps more important, escalate rather than backing down after the lie is caught; a willingness to attack respected figures; and a fundamental frivolousness, a sense that they are not taking all this very seriously.
There are differences, the biggest being, I think, that Trump and his allies control over all three branches of government, whereas McCarthy had to act more indirectly.
“One of his most striking instruments was a secret seditionist cabal he had organized within the government. This was a network of government servants and members of the armed forces (‘the Loyal American Underground,’ some of the proud, defiant members called themselves) who, in disregard for their oaths of office and the terms of their contracts with the taxpayers, reported directly to McCarthy and gave him their first loyalty.”
At his peak, McCarthy was more popular than Trump. Here’s Rovere:
“In January 1954, when the record was pretty well all in and the worst as well as the best was known, the researches of the Gallup Poll indicated that 50 per cent of the American people had a generally ‘favorable opinion’ of him and felt that he was serving the country in useful ways. Twenty-one per cent drew a blank–‘no opinion.’ The conscious, though not necessarily active, opposition–those with an ‘unfavorable opinion’–was 29 per cent. A ‘favorable opinion’ did not make a man a McCarthyite, and millions were shortly to revise their view to his disadvantage. But an opposition of only 29 per cent is not much to count on, and it was small wonder that his contemporaries feared him.”
In contrast, more Americans disapprove than approve of Trump. In retrospect, I suppose McCarthy had to have been that popular, in that his national following was the source of his power, and, without it, his fellow senators would not have supported him for so long. McCarthy did not have the advantage of party loyalty that Trump has enjoyed from Congress and the Supreme Court.
By pointing out these striking parallels (and some differences) between McCarthy and Trump, I do not mean to imply that Trump is the only modern politician to share certain of McCarthy’s attitudes and behaviors. Indeed, in some ways the similarities between the two political demagogues has led commenters astray. For example, in 2015, columnist Peter Beinart mistakenly wrote, “Pundits are pretty sure that Donald Trump has ‘jumped the shark.’ ‘Mr. Trump’s candidacy probably reached an inflection point on Saturday after he essentially criticized John McCain for being captured during the Vietnam War,’ declared The New York Times’ Nate Cohn last weekend. ‘Republican campaigns and elites quickly moved to condemn his comments–a shift that will probably mark the moment when Trump’s candidacy went from boom to bust.’ If Cohn is right, and I [Beinart] certainly hope he is, Trump’s political career will have followed the same basic arc as that of another notorious American demagogue, Joseph McCarthy. . . . It was only when McCarthy targeted the United States military that Republicans began taking him on. In late 1953, when McCarthy began investigating alleged communist influence in the Army, the Army counterattacked. . . . Although it’s too early to declare Trump’s political career over, the last few days resemble McCarthy’s descent in 1953 and 1954.”
Beinart’s and Cohn’s forecasts were wrong. Over a decade since Trump jumped the shark, the show remains on the air.
What’s so wrong with the above quotes is not that Nate Cohn and Peter Beinart made predictions that happened not to occur, or even that they took Bill Kristol as representative of Republican opinion. What bugs me is that Beinart botched the history. His story was that McCarthy was riding high, then he targeted the military, then he was brought down, but that’s not quite right. Beinart locates McCarthy’s targeting of the military in 1953, but it was two years earlier, in 1951, that McCarthy attacked George Marshall. McCarthy calling Marshall a traitor was a much bigger deal than Trump saying that McCain was not really a war hero–and, sure, lots of people were stunned that McCarthy took that step–but he ascended to his greatest power after the attack on Marshall, and it was years before McCarthy lost power.
Again, I have no crystal ball. As of July 21, 2015, it was perhaps reasonable to think that, by dissing John McCain, Trump had gone too far and that he was doomed. But it was a misreading of history to think that the analogous action had sent McCarthy down. McCarthy stayed afloat for years after making widely publicized and ridiculous attacks on a prominent military figure. You can learn more about this by reading Rovere’s book.
May I recommend reading “L’heure des prédateurs”, now out in English as “The Hour of the Predator”, by Giuliano Da Empoli? (We’re in 2025 now – but, alas, Russell’s (1933) “The Triumph of Stupidity” still holds. Except that now it’s unforgiveable, because we really should know better.)
Fascinating – and depressing. The parallels far outweigh the differences in my opinion. What do you make of the relative success of the two? Trump has gone further by becoming President (or perhaps King). McCarthy may have had a longer consistent tenure (I am not too sure how to measure this). Despite that ugly period, it sure looks like history has repeated itself (“this time is different,” of course, but in the same sense that Reinhardt and Rogoff used the phrase to describe financial crises over the centuries). The biggest difference I see (and you highlight) is that Trump has control over all 3 branches of government. So, is the main difference that this has exposed a flaw in our political system that we have avoided by sheer luck? We now have this type of political leader combined with control over all 3 branches – a unique combination (we’ve had pieces of this before, but have we ever had such a pure combination?).
Unlike most people reading this blog, I was an adult during McCarthy’s rise to power and then his fall. In a way, we were fortunate that he was the headliner of the movement inasmuch, as viewed from today, he had so much (alcoholic) baggage. One thing McCarthy did not have was personal wealth.
His fall from grace came suddenly via the Army-McCarthy hearings and Joseph Welch’s masterful dramatic manipulations–“Have you no decency, sir.” Alas, those were the good old days of anticommunism.
To relive the glorious days of yesteryear:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Fisher_(lawyer)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tail_Gunner_Joe
For those of us inclined towards fairy tales, I found this Army-McCarthy fairy-tale conclusion via the Web
“In short, Fred Fisher quietly resumed the kind of dignified, accomplished career that Joseph Welch’s famous defense had, in a sense, preserved for him — a reminder that decency, even when momentarily imperiled, can endure.”
“Belt and Road” (PRC); “Pelt and Bloat” (USA). We’ll see what happens ;-) As for Dale and Paul above, I wish you all the luck in the world. (If it helps, my dad was *1893 – the third youngest. We also have a 16th century family crypt – no worries, there’s worse :-).
Alternative view: this simply reflects common frames and interpretive frameworks used by center-of-left writers/journalists/etc when evaluating GOP/Conservative elites in general, and the more populist variants in particular. My political coming of age occurred during W. Bush’s presidency. He was vilified as a ruthless dictator, authoritarian, fascist, etc. He was also a simpleton, lacking in any intellectual abilities. I thought at the time, this must be a rare, isolated case related to the Iraq war. Just a heated situation that will not be repeated anytime soon.
But now Trump is being slapped with all the same labels. Dangerous king, fascist, anti-intellectual. The frames are very similar, and to make things sorta funny, W. Bush is not seen as an exemplar of what the GOP used to be.
We can go further back. Reagan was also labeled a fascist. I could go on and on.
It just seems to be the terms used by the liberal elite to describe anyone they disagree with. If you apply that same interpretive framework over many decades, it’s no surprise that there will be clear parallels between most GOP/Conservative elites.
Steve –
You make a fair point. Except here, Andrew isn’t saying the parallel is that the both were/are fascists. The point he’s making is that they both share a lot of important characteristics. Maybe you think they don’t, and it’s merely a biased liberal perception that they do. So which of those attributes describing McCarthy do you think Trump doesn’t share? Or do you think the description of the attributes of one or both of them is biased?
The fact that fascist has often been used to characterize disliked or detested politicians is no different than the use of “radical” in other contexts. Language is limited and I don’t find it strange to see repeated patterns of such usage. But the fact that the same terms were used does not render the situations equivalent. Bush never had demonstrations on the scale of No Kings, nor the intensity and scale of opposition that Trump has. Nor did Reagan. Nor have the labels of “radical leftist” been used as widely and intensely as now, despite the fact that they have been used for decades to describe opposing views. You seem to be denying that things are currently more polarized than in the past – a position I think is not consistent with the evidence. Maybe I haven’t been alive long enough (hard to believe) but I can recall opposing many politicians and hearing similar terms used to describe them – but never to the degree and intensity that I hear now. Your attempt to reduce the current situation to equivalence with past GOP administrations does not convince me in the least.
Tangential to your point, but what were the virtue signaling No Kings “protests” supposed to be achieving?
There was a different class of protester in the days of the civil rights movement, when they had specific demands and actually achieved something. Even in other countries recently, protest movements had specific demands and objectives and made progress towards achieving them–Israelis stopped Netanyahu’s judicial takeover bill by doing a general strike.
No Kings is meaningless.
Anon:
The “virtue signaling” is interest. Political communication is entirely about signaling, so the questions not whether to “signal” but what to signal. Virtue is one of the things that gets signaled, and for example we see virtue signaling with lots of the public prayer and other religious signifiers that show up at political events of all parties, not to mention the baby kissing and adorable families that are always trotted out. However, there are other sorts of signals: for example, one might signal moral ambivalence, to send a message that “Life is complicated, and we understand that” or “We don’t care about right or wrong, we only care about what works,” or even outright nastiness, to send a message that “We’re tough assholes who will fight for you.” I guess that most political events send a mix of these and other signals, and I’d expect to see an even broader mix for a decentralized organization such as No Kings.
Regarding what the protests (I’m not sure why you put the term in quotes, as the rallies were indeed protesting various government policies) were supposed to be achieving, I assume it’s the usual thing of keeping controversial policies in the news and emboldening others to join. I have no idea what progress will be made by the No Kings protesters. I guess that, as with other protest movements such as the civil rights movement, they will achieve some of their goals but not all at once.
This is off-topic, but what the hell. Demonstrations are especially effective in societies that valorize pluralism and loose consensus. I can recall being in Germany during anti-nuclear demos (blocking railways carrying nuclear waste from France), and the main response I heard from those who disagreed was something like, “I think they’re wrong, but there are lots of them, and they’re very committed, so we need to accommodate them to some extent.” In a better world, No Kings would evoke a response like that from Republicans. There was a vestige of that sentiment back in the days of civil rights and Vietnam war demonstrations, right?
Today demonstrations send different kinds of messages. To opponents, they say “there’s a lot of us, and if you don’t back down you’re going to be in trouble sooner rather than later.” To participants they say “You are not alone — you have many allies at your side” and “This issue is one we have to align on despite our other differences.” (See “The Ketchup Theory of Political Demonstrations: https://peterdorman.substack.com/p/the-ketchup-theory-of-political-demonstrations?r=b8ew) And to those who are neither opponents or supporters they say, “Pay attention: this is an important issue you have to inform yourself on and take a position.”
I agree that demonstrations do most of these things better if they are focused on a single point, like voting rights, ending the war, etc. In a way, No KIngs by its very name is centering on such a point, the threat of autocracy. The problem I see is that it isn’t very punchy or precise. What is it about kings you don’t like? That they came to power by the accident of birth? That you can’t get rid of them without beheading them or something ugly like that? That they live in splendor in their castles? And there are constitutional monarchs, right? I would have assigned the naming of the demo to a different writer.
Anonymous –
No Kings is meaningless.
I’m guessing you weren’t at one the the protests. Maybe you haven’t even talked politics with anyone who was.
It’s likely the only unified message among the protesters was opposition to Trump. And opposition to Trump isn’t a specific policy advocacy per se. But that doesn’t mean that the protesters aren’t in opposition to specific policies. There was a diverse set of Trump’s policies they were objecting to. Obviously, there’s no law of political physics that states that all people joining a protest have to be unified in the policies they’re advocating against.
Methinks your logic can be explained by the fact that you just don’t like the protesters and want to find justification for your emotions.
Joshua, it’s pretty simple: if your protest movement does not have specific objectives, it won’t achieve anything. That’s all. I mentioned the Israeli protests. Add to that the Kenyan protests against a draconian tax bill and the Bangladeshi and Nepalese protests against their authoritarian leaders. (They all achieved their specific and concrete goals.) I like protests. I don’t like pretend protests.
Methinks you simply don’t know how political concessions are won.
Anonymous –
if your protest movement does not have specific objectives, it won’t achieve anything.
This is circular reasoning. You start with equating “anything” with specific objectives and then say if they don’t have specific objectives they won’t achieve anything.
Protests can help shift norms or build coalitions.
Joshua, what are you talking about? It seems that you just don’t like this simple and obvious statement. It’s not circular. Your statement reminds me of p-hacking–instead of saying “the coefficient corresponding to our initial expectation is not significant, so we will look for one that is” it is “the protest didn’t achieve anything real but it shifted norms!!”
Building coalitions is done by organizing and convincing people, not protesting. It’s not clear what you mean by political norm shifts, but e.g. the norm of being a right-wing anti-labor judge was put into place by the Federalist Society, which very many law students who became judges were members of over the past 50 years, so this is also done by organizing.
I forgot to mention that all of the protests I mentioned were strongly connected to the labor movement in their respective countries. If your protests are not connected to a strong labor movement, they will have a much smaller chance of succeeding (maybe this is why no protests after the 1960s have been useful in this country).
Anonymous –
Building coalitions is done by organizing and convincing people, not protesting.
Now you’re constructing a false dichotomy. Organizing and convincing people aren’t mutually exclusive with less than specifically targeted protests generally, or specifically the No Kings protests.
For example: Biggest US labor unions fuel No Kings protests against Trump: ‘You need a voice to have freedom’
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/18/no-kings-protests-labor-unions
I’m in no way diminishing the importance of organizing or convincing. I’m a big fan of those. I’m not suggesting that a No Kings protest without any related organizing or convincing might be a better replacement for organizing or convincing. But it wouldn’t be zero sum anyway. It could be additive even if there were no organizing component and obviously not a better replacement. You seem to have a hair across your ass about the No Kings protests that just doesn’t seem to make logical sense to me.
I’ve seen a lot of RWers online and folks like Rogan get their yucks from mocking the No Kings protests, and it seems your objections are somewhat similar. Not that I think the protests are above criticism, but at least make the criticisms add logically and factually, and don’t feed an uninformed antipathy that only serves to further entrench MAGA.
Perhaps this article is informative as to the core of our disagreement:
https://jacobin.com/2025/10/no-kings-trump-labor-unions
Joshua,
“You seem to have a hair across your ass about the No Kings protests that just doesn’t seem to make logical sense to me.”
I said it repeatedly: it needs to have a specific objective or it’s useless. The core of my opposition is also that we need real protests, and No Kings makes it feel to certain people like they are achieving something or standing up to MAGA when they really are not. It could even take away energy from real causes and divert it to itself.
re: your link, maybe some labor union leaders and members like fake protests too, that’s possible. But the labor movement is (supposed to be) about winning specific and concrete concessions in the workplace, so it aids organizing and is more likely to have people who know how politics works. Successful protests are almost always deeply rooted in it (a high percentage of protesters). Protests may become more specific and successful if the labor movement gains strength. (Maybe there is a relationship in the opposite direction too–as the labor movement declines, protests become less specific and less successful.)
Joshua, I basically agree with that Jacobin article entirely. No Kings is not really rooted in labor, and any effective protest needs to be.
Anonymous –
I’ll wrap it up with one more comment. I look at “effective” as a relative term with in this case, much uncertainty. My bottom line is thst I see a No Kings march as less sub-optimal than no protests at all.
All of this discussion about whether the No Kings protests are worthless unless they have a clear objective! I find opposition to this administration is pretty worthless – Trump has surrounded himself with yes men (and a few yes women), Congress is controlled by the GOP that can see nothing wrong with anything Trump does, and the Courts appear to try to constrain overreach only to have the Supreme Court consistently overruling any constraints. So, I feel helpless.
I’ve now attended 2 No Kings protests (its been 50 years since my last one). Not because I think it will accomplish anything, but because it is the only thing I can do, worthless though it is. If there is any value it is in demonstrating the degree to which a large part of the country is horrified by what is happening. If enough of this is shown, then perhaps those in Congress will take seriously the degree to which they are bludgeoning many of us. Perhaps they will even fear reelection enough to have a backbone (though the redistricting is further erosion of the ability of the electorate to assert itself).
So, you can say the protests are worthless, but please tell me what action is available to me that would make a difference. Do you think a clear objective (e.g. no bombing boats in international waters without evidence; or no tariff wars, or ….) would empower those of us protesting any more than our helplessness at present? If so, please explain.
Dale:
As I said previously, a well organized protest with a clear objective would help, yes. Actions that would help materially in the present include:
-Donating to food banks now that SNAP has been cut off due to the shutdown
-Donating to unions and other organizations
-Offering your time to unions as an organizer
-Attending or organizing protests *with specific objectives*
etc.
I have done the first. I am planning to donate to the Union of Electrical Workers as well.
Alternatively, the language of the ideology of fascism grew rapidly during the Vietnam war era, fell back down, and then has been growing like crazy since Reagan’s election:
https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2025/04/15/the-deep-roots-of-fascist-thought/
Blair Fix calculates word frequencies in translations of the actual foundational texts of fascism like “The Doctrine of Fascism” and “Mein Kampf”. He then calculates how word frequency compares in giant corpuses of text published in each year through time… Sure enough, Fascist jarbon in english language publications increase dramatically during WWII, fall off, increase again during the vietnam era, fall off again, and then rocket upwards after the election of Reagan in 1980.
image link here: https://i0.wp.com/economicsfromthetopdown.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/fascism_english_pf.png?w=723&ssl=1
The ideology of fascism uses the same jargon as the warlike jargon if the 1700’s, and 1800’s as seen in: his image link here: https://i0.wp.com/economicsfromthetopdown.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/fascism_english.png?w=723&ssl=1
Objectively fascist jargon HAS been growing since back in the 1980’s and it was NOT hyperbole to say that the most recent origin of fascist jargon in the western world did start in the late 1970’s coincident with Reagan’s election in reaction to successes in battering it back in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.
People mistake the idea that somehow you must have a complete transition to fascism to be called fascist. Like Hitler was only a real fascist in 1934 once he had seized power and started construction on Dachau, rather than that Hitler was always a fascist going all the way back to 1920 or so because his goals were always to take over, oppress minorities, and extract wealth for his chosen in-group. Similarly, if american politicians have as their goal the creation of a surveillance police state and maximizing their control over individuals, maximize extraction of economic resources for an elite, and consolidating power by demonizing vulnerable groups like racial or immigrant groups and they use the rhetoric found in the foundational texts of fascism… then they are fascist, whether they’ve succeeded in consolidation or not.
This makes a big mistake in equating fascism with the charismatic leader. You can have fascism without that. Instead there is a conglomerate of sociopathic corporate entities running the show, speaking in bureaucratese (and indeed, that is the current US/EU system).
This also entails centralizing power into the merged state/industry fascist structure, just waiting for a strongman and his gang to take over during some kind of crisis. Then you can get your charismatic leader form as well.
It is like Orwell said, the difference between fascism and communism is only the order of implementation. In communism you first go after the rich, then the poor. In fascism you go after the poor, then the rich. The end result is the same totalitarian bureaucracy.
Anon:
Can you supply the relevant Orwell passage? Orwell was strongly anti-fascist and anti-communist, but I don’t remember reading anything by him quite like that last paragraph of yours.
https://www.telelib.com/authors/O/OrwellGeorge/essay/ShootingElephant/jamesburnham.html
Anon:
Thanks for the quote! It looks like Orwell was saying that the order of implementation was a difference between fascism and communism, but not that it was the only difference.
I recommend the entire thing, that was just a snippet:
Of course there are other minor/theoretical differences, but in practice not anything of major relevance to the end state. Its like concerning yourself with the details of the PRNG used to sample random numbers in a stats 101 class. Implementation details affecting efficiency and edge cases.
Anon:
Sure, but there Orwell was summarizing Burnham’s view. Orwell in that essay found that Burnham had a lot of interesting things to say, but he (Orwell) also expressed several disagreements with Burnham. I think this additional quote, indeed the entire essay, is consistent with Orwell noting many similarities between fascist and communist states, but not consistent with the statement that the order of implementation was the only difference, or the statement that any other differences are only minor or theoretical.
The difference between Marxist-Leninist style government and Fascism is in the mechanisms of consolidation of power and the rhetoric. you’re right, the end-point is the same… some miniscule elite in power over everyone else. Both are right-wing forms of politics, (when right-left is understood properly as a spectrum between pro-hierarchy anti-self governance on the right and anti-hierarchy pro self governance on the left).
Orwell was a socialist who fought in Spain against the Franco fascists. He was a proper leftist though in a kind of social democratic way if I understand properly. Spain is historically one of the places that actually tried modern Anarchism. He fought against the Francoists alongside Spanish Anarchists
Spanish Anarchists aligned themselves with Stalin because of Stalin’s pro-worker rhetoric, but in the end as I understand it, more Anarchists were killed by Stalin than by Franco. Stalin had no intention at all of allowing “the little people” to govern anything. Anarchists in Spain were running factories and farms and things as cooperatives, controlled by their workers. The ultimate form of Socialism and very much anti-hierarchy. Stalin on the other hand was a right wing hierarchical authoritarian dictator.
So yeah, you can get right wing hierarchical dictatorships by many paths, but the specifically *fascist* path is to use propaganda around “the other” (racial or social group) being evil and needing to be suppressed by glorious violence committed by pure “homeland” protectors for the glory of the state above all else.
Umberto Eco’s essay is a pretty good intro to the underlying basis of Fascism (Ur Fascism or … the root of Fascism) https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umberto-eco-ur-fascism
He identifies several important components of Ur Fascism, including deep “traditionalism”, a rejection of reason, and logic and rationality in favor of emotion, especially hate of the other and love for the “in group”, a demand for uniformity, nationalism, violence and struggle, populism and the promotion of the “good people” of the country, etc
Those are very different rhetorical methods of consolidation of power than something like Stalinism. In the end, I think what Orwell was saying is that Stalin and Franco were the same thing fighting over who would be the ultimate dictator. The Anarchists and Democratic Socialists (like Orwell) were fooled by Stalin, and he’s warning against believing the so-called “rhetoric of the people” that Stalin used.
Nevertheless, in the US, the form of authoritarianism that is taking hold now is not Stalinist style anti-capitalist “pro worker” rhetoric, it’s fascist style racist and anti-other populist irrational anti-intellectual rhetoric.
Thank you both (Andrew and Daniel) for the thoughtful responses. If you know of direct quotes from people living through this at the time (rather than via the retrospectroscope), I would love those leads. To me, the goal is to find the closest few analogies to the current situation.
Orwell wrote a book “Homage to Catalonia” which is kind of an autobiography of his Spanish civil war experience. I’ve got it on my reading list but haven’t started it yet.
So you know most everyone are fascists, despite not being fascists, because of word counts. And Stalin along with just about every other self identified leftist is actually right wing. Riiiight.
Daniel, I’m not saying this to be mean or cruel, but I genuinely think at some point in the last few years you’ve had some sort of mental break with reality.
It’s fascinating to watch though. Can you regale us again with your detailed models showing locking up criminals has nothing to do with the decrease in crime and might actually increase it?
It’s a useful reminder of ideological rot does to the mind of data scientist.
Anon:
This sort of rudeness does not benefit our comment section. If you want to express disagreement with something on one of our posts or comments, please be polite, direct, and to the point.
For example, you could write something like:
Give specific examples if you want, or, sure, express your feelings; for example:
Whatever. I have no problem with emotion in the comments section. I get emotional too! Just work on being polite, direct, and accurate.
Fascinating post. During Trump’s first term, I thought much of the “fascist” reaction was overwrought—Bush was called that too, and now seems mild by comparison. (Steve omits that Obama and Biden have also been labeled fascistic by many.)I’ve assumed partisan bias makes any opponent seem fascistic. Trump mostly cosplayed it for political gain—satisfying supporters’ grievances and thriving on the label—but policies were fascist-lite at worst, thanks to institutional constraints.Now, with fewer constraints, it feels more real, and I’m wondering if I’m being overwrought again.These McCarthy-Trump parallels are an eye-opener. I’d sensed them vaguely, but the specifics provide an objective check against my partisan bias.
The OP is right, IMO, in identifying a number of parallels between McCarthy and Trump as politicians. They both combined synergistic elements of the hawker and the bully. But the context has changed. McCarthy was the leader of a counter-New Deal movement that was developing in opposition to the accommodationist Eisenhower. It had significant support on the moneyed right (those Texas oilmen), but it was still a minority among the donor class overall. And social norms relating to probity, consistency and honesty had real purchase.
The world around Trump is different. Wealth is readily mobilized to support the far right, and little is left for the rest of the spectrum. The post-Reagan neoliberal compromise has shattered, and there isn’t a coherent program (yet) to replace it, at least not among those with money and influence. And the old norms are gone. We can debate why, but behavior that used to be disqualifying is not only tolerated but celebrated broadly. I think it has something to do with the transformation of politics into entertainment — a spectator sport for most of the public. That’s another topic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9x70bndpc70
McCarthy, like Trump, did not come out of nowhere. Communists (I knew some of them) helped organize the CIO (my aunt), helped staff the New Deal, and went into the military during WWII (my uncle and others). After the war, and with the beginning of the Cold War, people who did not like them being in the Roosevelt coalition started moving to sideline them, as with expelling “communist dominated” unions from the CIO, blacklisting screenwriters (including a neighbor), and kicking the Reds (including the guy who taught me to hunt) out of the UN staff. McCarthy rode that wave, but there was also the House Un-American Activities Committee, etc., and the Red Scare lived on after him. In 1960, when I started at the University of Chicago, some students declined to sign a petition against the House Un-American Activities Committee because they wanted to be teachers.
History is not just the biographies of great men.
Quoth John G. Williams: “History is not just the biographies of great men.”
Which is why I entirely agree with B. Russell’s assessment of Carlyle.
As for the ‘great’ bit, until the 20th century, provided you you left a trail of death behind you, they’d posthumously call you “The Great”.
(Have no fear – politically, I’m a member of the Radical Centre, always reserving the right to be wrong – it’s those who are dead certain who worry me.)
By the way, there’s an important and relevant link: Roy Cohn.
As Joe McCarthy’s chief counsel during the 1950s Red Scare hearings—where he orchestrated character assassinations, media smears, and relentless attacks on perceived enemies—Cohn mastered a playbook of belligerent, no-apologies tactics that destroyed careers without remorse.
He became Donald Trump’s mentor and lawyer in the 1970s and ’80s, schooling him in the same dark arts: “Attack first, counterattack harder, never apologize,” deny facts aggressively, and wield publicity as a weapon.
This may help explain the strategic, methodological, and stylistic parallels between McCarthy’s demagoguery and Trump’s—grievance-fueled rallies, enemy lists, and “fake news” deflections aren’t coincidence.
Agreed.
A big similarity is how both McCarthy and Trump triggered Leftists into a Derangement Syndrome. Most of the criticisms of McCarthy was just name-calling and do not even make much sense.
Roger:
You can read the Rovere book or other histories of the era. McCarthy lied about a lot of things, including the famous list of communists. He also claimed that George Marshall was a traitor, a claim for which no serious evidence has been offered. And lots of other things. Like Trump, McCarthy often didn’t seem to really care if he was telling the truth or not.
Given McCarthy’s power and popularity, it’s no surprise that his behavior bothered a lot of people. I don’t see any sense in calling this a “syndrome.” If a powerful political leader uses lies to push an agenda you oppose, it makes sense that you will be bothered and will push back. This is not a psychological “syndrome”; it’s appropriate political behavior. The more complicated question is what is appropriate behavior if a powerful political leader uses lies to push an agenda you support. In that case, it’s natural to feel conflicted. But I wouldn’t call that a “derangement syndrome” either; again, it’s a natural political reaction.
McCarthy’s big issue was Communists and sympathizers in the State Department. It is true that he could not prove everything he said, but there really were Communist sympathizers in the government.
Telling lies is not really was upset people about McCarthy, or of Trump. They were mainly hated for more ideological reasons.
Roger:
I can’t say what upset other people. It’s a matter of public record that McCarthy lied about all sorts of things, including in his core political issue. The nonexistent list of 205 communists and the claims about Marshall are just two of these things.
The issue is not that “he could not prove everything he said”; it’s that these were flat-out lies.
Regarding your last sentence, I refer you to the second paragraph of my paragraph above. It indeed makes complete sense that people who disagree with McCarthy’s ideological positions would in addition be disturbed by his methods, and that people who agree with his ideological positions would have more complicated feelings.
Roger –
McCarthy wasn’t just condemned by “deranged leftists” – was censured by his own Senate colleagues for lying and abusing power.
You do know that “derangement syndrome” was widely used to characterize Bush’s and Obama’s detracters as well, right?
What parameters do you use to draw the line between just ol’ detracters and those detracters that are deranged?
Calling critics “deranged” doesn’t erase the record. What specific McCarthy/Trump parallel do you think is false?
And not just detracters, but detractors also.
You say censured for “for lying and abusing power.” The actual charges were failing the co-operate with the senators investigating him, and badmouthing them.
Yes, you can compare that to Trump badmouthing those who were prosecuting him.
The censure resolution only proved that McCarthy had political enemies.
Roger —
A Republican-led Watkins Committee distilled 46 specific allegations of misconduct into two censure counts.
Senate Resolution 301 condemned McCarthy for conduct that “brought the Senate into dishonor and disrepute, obstructed constitutional processes, and impaired its dignity.”
He claimed a list of 205 (or 57, or 81—pick a number) “known communists” in the State Department, waving a paper as proof.
The bipartisan Tydings Committee subpoenaed his files: no list existed. He called the number “approximate.” They called it a fraud and a hoax.
This wasn’t failure to substantiate. It was fabrication.
The Venona decrypts confirmed @300 Soviet agents, but none of them were on McCarthy’s public lists.
Tydings reviewed the 81 cases he submitted and all were cleared or baseless.
His own aide, J.B. Matthews: “We had no evidence—just rumors.”
This is unfalsifiable reasoning just like above.
Any criticism of Trump = “derangement.”
Any charge against McCarthy = “political enmity,” even when evidence shows fabrication.
Where do you draw the line?
Specific claims were made. Evidence was demanded. None was delivered. Innocents were smeared.
Yet you insist it’s not lying, just unproven claims. That’s not skepticism, it’s a blank check for weaponizing unfalsifiability and openly declaring immunity to standards of evidence.
Joshua, you were the one to make a big point about how McCarthy was censured by the Senate. Now you are saying that he was censured on only 2 of 46 charges.
Then you say that he failed to substantiate some of his accusations. Yes, that is true, but does not explain the hatred for him.
People also complain that Trump exaggerates a lot. It is true, he does. But again, that is not why he is hated. It is just something that his enemies like to complain about.
Roger:
It should be possible for you to recognize that both McCarthy and Trump lied repeatedly (did not just say things they could not prove, did not just exaggerate) about issues large and small, but that you still agree with their political projects and that the lying doesn’t bother you so much, either because you see it as advancing the larger political goals or because you see it as minor compared to the political stakes involved.
I see your inability and unwillingness to simultaneously express these two views (that these politicians were big-time liars and that they advocated positions you agree with) as being connected to a cognitive issue that we’ve also seen in science, of people expecting all evidence to point in the same direction. In your case, it’s in the service of political coherence rather than a scientific theory, but it seems like the same general idea, akin to the promoters of Nudge wanting to think that every study should favor their conceptual hypothesis.
Roger – we’re entering garbage time but I’ll try again.
The Watkins Committee reviewed 46 documented instances of misconduct—lies, smears, obstruction.
Yes, they didn’t bring 46 separate charges.
They consolidated them into two formal censure counts:
Count 1:
“That the Senator from Wisconsin failed to cooperate with and disrespected the Subcommittee on Privileges and Elections… by refusing to answer questions, by characterizing the subcommittee’s inquiry as a ‘lynch party,’ and by obstructing its investigation into his own conduct.”
Count 2:
“That he repeatedly abused and insulted fellow Senators and public officials, used unverified and scurrilous charges, and conducted himself in a manner tending to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute.”
What would you expect?
A separate censure vote for every lie? Every smear? Every refusal to answer?
That’s not how the Senate works.
They condensed the pattern so the full body could condemn the whole.
And they did—67–22.
You’re not engaging the evidence. You’re parsing process to dodge the substance.
Still waiting for an answer to my question:
Where do you draw the line? What is your standard of evidence?
Consider a recent Trump claim — that he ended 8 wars. This is an exaggeration. Most of them were not really wars, and the conflicts have not really ended. I do not find it useful to call this a lie. If you disagree with his foreign policy, just say so. If your main gripe about Trump is that this is a lie, then you have a petty gripe.
Trump is the most transparent President in decades. He is what he appears to be, do does what he says, and he keeps his promises. You say he has a willingness to boldly lie about important things. Is that what he did when he said he ended 8 wars? No, that would be lying to get the nation into a war, or making a big campaign promise to win votes and reneging later. Or covering for a President who was no longer doing his job because of a mental decline.
Roger:
I do not consider it “a petty gripe” to call a lie a lie, any more than I consider it picky for me to point out errors in published research papers. Then again, I’m a statistician. You are in a similar position to the promoters of Nudge, social priming, etc etc, in that you believe in the big picture and you want to avoid facing whatever aspects of reality would not favor that picture. I think that’s too bad–for you, as with all those behavioral researchers, I wish you could simultaneously hold your political or scientific beliefs without having to look away from problems with evidence–but of course I don’t expect to change people in these sorts of discussions.
For me, the value of this sort of exchange in the comment section is not to make the obvious point that Trump, like McCarthy, is a serial liar and keeps lying even after he’s caught out on it; rather, it’s been interesting to see this connection between denial of contrary evidence in these very different areas. I hadn’t see the connection before. So thanks for commenting.
Regarding Trump being “transparent”, this Discworld quote would seem apropos:
“And these are your reasons, my lord?”
“Do you think I have others?” said Lord Vetinari. “My motives, as ever, are entirely transparent.”
Hughnon reflected that “entirely transparent” meant either that you could see right through them or that you couldn’t see them at all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THBNIolPYWU
I have no idea where all of you Levittownian brats come from, with all your self-assurance, but whe Ronnie came along with his “War on poverty” we all – or at least some of us – knew that it meant little more than “War on the poor”.
Sorry!
Olaf,
I assume the Levittownian brats come from . . . Levittown! But I’m not from Levittown; that’s my siblings you’re talking about.
It’s an architectural style which seems to beget a most peculiar mentality – think Stepford etc. There’s even a settlement to the south of Brussels – there but by the grace of IBM – which looks similar, with the commensurate behavior of its residents. (The New Yorker, decades ago, had a cartoon of wifey standing in front of a building site saying “I can’t wait to see what it’s going to look like!”, all other houses looking the same).
This story from the Chicago Tribune somehow seems relevant to the discussion here. When I lived in Chicago, long ago, the Tribune was a right-wing rag, but I gather it has moved toward the center: https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/03/chicago-woman-collision-ice-accountability/?lctg=64878560258254F155C4F504CF&utm_email=64878560258254F155C4F504CF&active=no&utm_source=listrak&utm_medium=email&utm_term=https%3a%2f%2fwww.chicagotribune.com%2f2025%2f11%2f03%2fchicago-woman-collision-ice-accountability%2f&utm_campaign=trib-chicago_tribune-daywatch-nl&utm_content=curated
Roger, this is Andrew Gelman’s blog. He equated you with;
“I see your inability and unwillingness to simultaneously express these two views (that these politicians were big-time liars and that they advocated positions you agree with) as being connected to a cognitive issue that we’ve also seen in science, of people expecting all evidence to point in the same direction. In your case, it’s in the service of political coherence rather than a scientific theory, but it seems like the same general idea, akin to the promoters of Nudge wanting to think that every study should favor their conceptual hypothesis.”
Tarred & feathered. Neon saying Non Replicable. Debunked Einstein E=mc2 yet?
Roger you said; “Trump is the most transparent President in decades. He is what he appears to be, do does what he says, and he keeps his promises.”
Only a 9 year old would agree who read your blog and uses Conservopedia for factual info.
Roger Schlafly on “Patriarchy”
Roger, is Patriarchy a mathematical construct?
In Roger’s own words…
“Besides numerical values, there are also the values that represent the qualities or beliefs that people consider important, such as loyalty and respect. Some values are singularly important, and yet are commonly overlooked. One example is the American Patriarchy. I defend it here.
…
“About Schlafly blogs.”
https://www.spinstop.com/buzz/about.htm
Wednesday, May 04, 2022
“We do not have a Patriarchy
…
“Yes, our society is organized around convenient and available sexual relations for women, but not for men like the above incel.
…
“Scott is a smart man, but is brainwashed with typical Jewish Leftist academic thinking.
Update: A “Feminist in Tech” responded that some nerd once tried to kiss her at a work party, that some guys just don’t deserve sex, and that incels should be outed and fired from their jobs. Feminist maliciousness is worse than I thought.”
Sunday, September 13, 2020
“Manplaining is as venerable as the Patriarchy
..
“Think about all the coherent explanations that you have gotten in your life, whether from teachers, textbooks, colleagues, friends, or whatever. How many were from men? 90%? 99%? Men have been authorities of knowledge since the beginning of civilization.”
Sunday, March 11, 2018
Krauss is being silenced
…
“Coyne has a popular blog, and probably most of his readers think that he is gay. He denies it, but he blogs a lot about his personal life, and it is obvious that he has no wife, no girlfriend, and no kids. Furthermore, he has stereotypical gay interests in music, arts, clothing, and pets. And his political views are mostly what you would expect from a gay atheist professor.
I am not saying this to criticize, but to give background for his opinions. He does not appear to have any worries that any woman is going to metoo him.
I have no way of knowing how he has flirted with women in the past, and I don’t see how it is anyone’s business.”
…
https://blog.darkbuzz.com/2018/03/krauss-is-being-silenced.html
Andrew, please feel free to debunk any of Roger Schlafly’s work. Fish. Barrel.
No kings
No knights
No truth
No honor, and no fair fights
Just crowds
Just sheep
Just lies
Just politics, and secrets to keep
If I can’t be like you
I demand you should be like me
If I don’t know what’s right or wrong
I demand you should see how, and what, I see
My weaknesses, and manipulation, may not be so clear
If I am (part of) the crowd
Then we can collectively shout “Witch!” at individuals
Whilst we look at each other to see if we should feel proud