{"id":3692,"date":"2016-08-01T20:45:07","date_gmt":"2016-08-02T03:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/?p=3692"},"modified":"2016-08-02T04:35:57","modified_gmt":"2016-08-02T11:35:57","slug":"mccarthy-2-0","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/2016\/08\/mccarthy-2-0\/","title":{"rendered":"McCarthy 2.0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Khizr<\/a>I watched Khiza Khan and his wife on TV tonight, again attempting to defend themselves against charges<\/a> that no one in their position should have to confront \u2013 that they represent what is bad about Islam. The irony of watching these two people who have paid the ultimate sacrifice being subjected to accusations of disloyalty turns my stomach. As the post-convention Trump campaign unfolds, I can\u2019t help thinking of the McCarthy witch hunts of the 1950s and wonder if this is a distant mirror 60 years later.<\/p>\n

Sen. McCarthy briefly managed to convince a large percentage of the American public in the mid-1950s that a communist menace dwelt in our midst. He did so without evidence, other than a secret list of names that he never divulged. His evasiveness didn\u2019t stop Americans from believing him. In a Gallup poll in early 1954, McCarthy\u2019s approval rating hit 50%.<\/p>\n

McCarthy played on unjustified fears that were never supported by facts. In the age of social media, you\u2019d think we\u2019d insist on more verification of the truth, but that hasn\u2019t stopped Donald Trump from winning his party\u2019s nomination. Where is the validation that Muslims are a threat to our society? Or evidence that Muslims are any more responsible for the 9\/11 crimes than Christians were for the Oklahoma City bombings? Where\u2019s the evidence that religion has anything to do with terror? Terrorists are often fanatics, but fanaticism is a disorder that associates itself with religion out of convenience, in the same way that people who kill their classmates blame social ostracism for their actions when the real reason is the demons inside their own brains.<\/p>\n

McCarthy\u2019s case unraveled quickly once reasonable heads prevailed. Let\u2019s hope the same thing happens to the Trump campaign. The good news is that party leaders have refused to endorse their standard-bearer\u2019s borderline psychotic behavior in this situation. The bad news is that they have refused to disavow him entirely. Apparently, party unity is more important than isolating a candidate whose paranoid ravings threaten the party itself. It\u2019ll be interesting to see how Republican leaders scuttle back into their corners after this election has played out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I watched Khiza Khan and his wife on TV tonight, again attempting to defend themselves against charges that no one in their position should have to confront \u2013 that they represent what is bad about Islam. The irony of watching … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[699,25,413],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pTy95-Xy","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3692"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3692"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3696,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3692\/revisions\/3696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}