The Ugly American

Since so many of my compatriots love to hate America and Americans, here is the story of an American worthy of scorn. Indeed, so worthy that he may well be the most despised American in America.
More than half a century after his death, he continues to cast a deep, dark and dreadful shadow on America and beyond. His is a cautionary legacy that still lingers; not just in his own country, but in any polity that dares to dabble with democracy. The demons that lurk in this story hold many lessons that Americans continue to grapple with; and many more than Pakistanis would do well to pay some attention to.
Joseph Raymond ‘Joe’ McCarthy was born in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, on November 14, 1908. Born on a farmstead to parents of Irish descent, Joe McCarthy was the fifth of seven children. Dropping out of school at age 14 to help his parents on the farm, he later returned to complete high school at age 20 and then went on to get a law degree from Marquette University in Milwaukee. Undeterred by an unsuccessful run for the office of district attorney in 1936, he ran again for district judge (an elected office) in 1939, and won.
As judge he became known as a quick decision-maker; a trait that masked a certain callousness that his later career would highlight more fully. During World War II he joined the US Marine Corps. Returning after the war Joe McCarthy ran in 1946 for the Senate seat from Wisconsin, winning on a Republican ticket and a combination of sleazy tactics and a war candidature.
Without doing much of note in his unimpressive first few years, McCarthy was nonetheless voted as “the worst US Senator” by the Senate Press Corps; mostly thanks to his poor judgement, quick temper, outbursts of rage, and a fanaticism that masqueraded as decisiveness. Ironically, the bullying tactics that would lead to his meteoric rise were triggered most of all by his own dwindling political fortune.
The political science concept that now bears his name, McCarthyism, was born in 1950 amidst his need to stimulate a sagging political career in the wake of a looming re-election. He picked up on what was the most prevalent political fear of his time and place – communism – and around it he built a narrative of fear, an empire of intimidation, and a language of terror.
In the words of his biographer, Richard Rovere, Joe McCarthy had found the key to the “dark places of the American mind.” Using language laced with invocations of patriotism and religion, God and country, he proved what many have long known: in politics, nothing sells like fear and there is no better peddler of fear than the self-obsessed zealot.
Joe McCarthy won his election. And with it the chairmanship of a Senate Committee which he converted into his personal inquisition of those he disliked or disagreed with. The charge was always the same. They were un-American – or, worse, anti-American. In McCarthy’s world there was no greater crime than that. And, none easier to prove. In his mind he, and he alone, was the custodian of what it meant to be American. Therefore, if he thought someone was not; then, they were not. Quod erat demonstrandum. Q.E.D.
Like many before him and many since – but with an unmatched and fanatical determination – Senator Joseph McCarthy draped himself in that warm and welcoming cloak of the scoundrel: patriotism. Veteran journalist Bill Moyers has described Joe McCarthy as a “most contemptible thug” who “employed lies and innuendo with swaggering bravado.” He did so, also, with great self-righteousness. In this process scores of innocent lives were destroyed, careers decimated, dignity dismantled and a dark fog of fear descended.
McCarthyism is often described as a political witch-hunt or the practice of alleging treason without evidence. It is that, but it is also more. It builds on baseless and cruel accusations, recklessly ignites societal fears, and uses coercion and bullying to instil terror.
As historian William Manchester points out, “[McCarthy] had stumbled on a brilliant demagogic technique… others deplored treachery, McCarthy would speak of traitors.” Joe McCarthy saw seditious communists, enemies of the state, subversives and traitors everywhere. And for that moment, much of the American public rode his frenzy with him. Joe McCarthy would point, and they, too, would see seditious communists, enemies of the state, subversives and traitors everywhere.
How could they not? In the world Joe McCarthy had constructed, to not see seditious communists, enemies of the state, subversives and traitors when he called them out was tantamount to being a seditious communist, enemy of the state, subversive and traitor yourself.
Joe McCarthy also had the good fortune of good timing. He had erupted on the scene at a time of great media change. He played the media. And the media played him. His wagging finger. His bombastic charge-sheets. His vitriolic outbursts. His holier-than-thou wrapped-in-flag ‘swaggering bravado’. All of this made not just good copy, but a glorious spectacle. A spectacle that seemed to have been made just for the sparkling new technology of television and even more for the newly-minted platform of the political talk show.
Ultimately, Bill Moyers reminds us, Senator Joe McCarthy was “done in by the medium he had used so effectively to spread his poison: television.” In particular, legendary television news pioneer Edward R Murrow took McCarthy on in his popular news show See It Now, in what has been described as “a television slaughter” (and depicted in the movie Good Night, and Good Luck).
But much more than the media, McCarthy was done in by his own hubris and the few who spoke up. If there was one moment which defined his downfall it was during the 1954 hearings he initiated to unearth communists in the US Army. During one exchange, McCarthy began attacking a young lawyer who worked with the army’s chief legal adviser, Joseph N Welch, accusing the young man of also being a communist sympathiser. An exasperated Welch could bear this injustice no more and retorted in anger and anguish: “Senator, you’ve done enough! Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
And the Senate gallery erupted in applause.
This moment defined the end of Joe McCarthy’s ‘reign of terror’. By the end of the year, the Senate had passed a censure against him. McCarthy, who had so recently seemed invincible and who many of them had tolerated, if not outright supported, withered into an outcast as quickly as he had risen into a hero.
The lessons of a good story should be self-evident. The lessons of a bad story, even more so. But for the benefit of those who may have skipped straight to the conclusion, let me highlight at least three lessons that no student of democracy should ever forget.
First, democracy demands constant vigilance. Even mature democracies are not immune to demagogic skulduggery. Second, distrust the narratives of fear and the discourse of exclusion. Be wary of those who peddle a merchandise of self-righteousness no matter where they come from: politician, pulpit, press or public. Third, know that there is hope. The only way to beat fear is to beat fear. One Edward R Murrow speaks up, one Joseph N Welch stands up to the bully, and suddenly the silence of the many is broken.
Sen. Joe McCarthy died at the Bethesda Naval Hospital in Washington DC on May 2, 1957, at the age of 48. His spirit lives on in many places. Including Pakistan.
P.S: If anyone wonders what McCarthy has to do with Pakistan, you have obviously not been following the political, social, and media discourse in our blessed land. Beware of those who raise the slogans of nationalism or piety in vain. Be afraid. Be very very afraid of Pakistanis who think they are more Pakistani than all other Pakistanis. Or of Muslims who think they are more Muslim than all other Muslims.
The writer has taught international relations and diplomacy at Boston University and at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and was the vice chancellor of LUMS.
Twitter: @adilnajam