LETTER: False communist slurs back in vogue as in McCarthy era

To Ozaukee Press:

It looks like today’s Republican Party is dusting off its greatest hits from the 1950s.

With increasing frequency, elected officials and candidates are carelessly reviving a political slur that dominated American politics 70 years ago. During the era led by Sen. Joseph McCarthy, accusations of communism ruined careers, destroyed reputations and, in some cases, contributed to suicides. Thousands of Americans endured needless fear and stress because of reckless allegations that often lacked any evidence.

What is especially frustrating is that many of the politicians who casually throw around the word “communist” appear to have little understanding of what it actually means.

Communism is an economic system in which the state owns the means of production and controls private enterprise. That is not the platform of the Democratic Party, regardless of what political rhetoric suggests.

Here’s an irony. During Donald Trump’s presidency, the federal government acquired significant ownership stakes in several private companies through emergency financial interventions. While those actions were intended as temporary measures rather than ideological commitments to communism, they demonstrate how casually political labels are often applied without regard for their actual meaning.

The resurgence of McCarthy-style rhetoric is particularly striking in Wisconsin, where Joseph McCarthy is a revered figure to some to this day.

Here’s a bit of history many don’t know. Following the 1944 Malmedy massacre, in which members of the Waffen-SS murdered 84 American prisoners of war during the Battle of the Bulge, McCarthy publicly criticized the military prosecutions of some of the accused German soldiers, arguing that the investigations had been tainted by improper methods and characterizing aspects of the prosecutions as influenced by communist interests.

The roots between McCarthyism and modern politics do not end there. One of Donald Trump’s most influential early mentors was Roy Cohn, who had served as McCarthy’s chief counsel. Cohn’s aggressive, attack-first political style has been widely recognized as having shaped Trump’s own approach to politics. Certainly the art of using the word communism as a weapon was part of his grooming.

History should teach us that branding political opponents as communists is not an argument — it is a tactic. It substitutes fear for facts and slogans for serious debate.

When you hear a politician label an opponent a communist, ask yourself whether they are trying to manipulate your emotions. In many cases, the accusation says far more about the speaker’s desperation than it does about the person being accused.

Keith R. Schmitz

Milwaukee