The New York Times Just Compared Donald Trump To ‘Joseph McCarthy In 1950’

The New York Times Editorial Board just published an editorial attacking “Mr. Trump’s Applause Lies.”

The New York Times Editorial Board speaks directly for the Paper of Record. It generally addresses issues of great importance, and generally in a measured tone.

Today, the Times Editorial Board took Donald Trump to task, labeling him as a “demagogue” while detailing his “racist lies.”

“If it’s a lie too vile to utter aloud, count on Mr. Trump to say it, often,” the Times accuses, offering “a partial list” of Trump’s “false statements”:

The United States is about to take in 250,000 Syrian refugees; African-Americans are responsible for most white homicides; and during the 9/11 attacks, “thousands and thousands” of people in an unnamed “Arab” community in New Jersey “were cheering as that building was coming down.”

And then the Times compares Trump to “Joseph McCarthy in 1950,” putting side by side Trump’s comments and those of the U.S. Senator whose name has become synonymous with lying, false accusations, and ginning up one group of people and using them to attack another group of people. 

An excerpt:

Here’s Donald Trump on Sunday: “When the Syrian refugees are going to start pouring into this country, we don’t know if they’re ISIS, we don’t know if it’s a Trojan horse. And I definitely want a database and other checks and balances. We want to go with watch lists. We want to go with databases. And we have no choice. We have no idea who’s being sent in here. This could be the — it’s probably not, but it could be the great Trojan horse of all time, where they come in.” 

Here’s Joseph McCarthy in 1950: “Today we are engaged in a final, all-out battle between communistic atheism and Christianity. The modern champions of communism have selected this as the time, and ladies and gentlemen, the chips are down — they are truly down.”

The Times also compares Trump to George Wallace, the former Alabama governor and racist segregationist who literally stood and blocked the doorway of equality for the African-American civil rights movement.

And they warn that while Trump’s “right to spew nonsense is protected by the Constitution … the public doesn’t need to swallow it.”

 

Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license