New ‘McCarthyism: It appears as though the American masses may have become too ignorant for our nation to be able to survive

The liberals’ new ‘McCarthyism’

By John F. Gaski

How Republicans could trump the race card tactic

Of all the crimes against standards of decent discourse that we observe in contemporary politics and media, several are congealing into an ugly mass that stifles free expression and civil interchange.

In roughly inverse order of dysfunctional magnitude, they are: the tendency for sophists and demagogues to rely on mere unsupported assertion as a tactic; cheap, pejorative name-calling descending to the level of smear and slander; and violating a basic rule of argumentation by questioning, or presuming to know, others’ motives.

Perhaps the only way to make matters worse would be to apply the poisonous amalgam to the most sensitive of all issues; namely, race. Readers surely have noticed that the topic of race itself has become the No. 1 conversation stopper of our time — except for those who incessantly exploit it.

For anyone uneasy about this unwholesome pattern that has transpired lately, and who may be not quite able to put their finger on it, here is a deconstruction in the form of elaborated and grounded hypothesis: There is a reason why liberal Democrats resort to sophistry and other dishonesty so regularly, whether on national television, around the water cooler, in Congress or the White House.

Evidently, they know they cannot win a fair debate because the facts are against them. Their retreat to the illegitimate tactics itemized above suggests their awareness of this deficiency — consciousness of guilt, as it were.

Then, combining the inherent disadvantage of substantive weakness with their political intensity, the offenders are given to extreme rhetoric. Unlike conservatives and Republicans, for liberals and Democrats, politics is paramount because government is everything to them. This premise is demonstrable, not assumed.

An especially sordid tactic that has become tediously familiar is use of the race card. Liberal Democrats can hardly resist throwing around the “racist” accusation against political opponents.

In fact, they overuse it so much that they are like “the boy who cried ‘wolf,’” except for two things: The supposed neutral referee — the mainstream media — does not call them on it, and the flat-footed fecklessness of their Republican foes allows them latitude to get away with it.


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