How Was Demagogue Joe McCarthy Finally Brought Down?
Three forces toppled McCarthy: his own party, the press, and hepatitis from alcohol abuse
Until the political emergence of Donald J. Trump in 2015, Republican Senator Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin was the most infamous demagogue in recent American memory. He rose to prominence during the Cold War, using his position as U.S. senator to launch a campaign of fear, intimidation, and disinformation against fantasized communists in the State Department and the U.S. Army.
For years, McCarthy seemed untouchable, but eventually he was brought down. How did it happen?
Three forces toppled McCarthy. They were his own Republican Party, the press, and hepatitis caused from years of alcohol abuse.
The campaign against McCarthy began in earnest in 1950 when Maine Senator Margaret Chase Smith delivered her landmark “Declaration of Conscience” speech on the floor of the Senate. In her address, she challenged the poisonous tactics and demagoguery of Senator Joseph McCarthy, saying "I don't want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny—Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear."
It took years, but by 1954 other leading figures in the Republican Party came around.
The press also played a key role in bringing down McCarthy. Journalists like Edward R. Murrow and Drew Pearson were relentless in their criticisms of McCarthy, exposing his lies and exaggerations and painting him as a danger to the constitutional order.
The defense of democracy by Murrow, Pearson, and other journalists, of course, took place in an era of only three major television networks, NBC, CBS, and ABC. By and large, all three networks delivered ethical news—by mature adults—based on the pursuit of fact and truth.
"The Wisconsin senator is, I think,” Pearson once said, “America's number one national liar."
"I think McCarthy has done more damage to American institutions,” he added, “than any other man in history."
Perhaps the most significant event in McCarthy's downfall was the Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954. These televised hearings provided a dramatic and damning spectacle for the American public. During the hearings, McCarthy's behavior was increasingly erratic and abusive, and his claims were debunked by witnesses and evidence. This led to a significant loss of credibility for McCarthy and a formal vote to censure him at the end of year.
That December of 1954 the Senate voted 67 to 22 in favor of censure. Afterwards, McCarthy was stripped of his chairmanship of the Committee on Government Operations and effectively sidelined by the party. His political career went into decline, and he died three years later of hepatitis due to a lifetime of alcohol abuse. He was 48.
Donald Trump has done far more damage to American institutions than McCarthy. Has a Republican Party of conscience stopped him? An ethical news media? No, these two cornerstones of democracy have failed.
Therefore, we are left to lean entirely upon another cornerstone of free government: the rule of law.
It is the hope of millions that the rule of law, starting with the Manhattan grand jury’s indictment on March 30, 2023—vitally, always operating on the principle of innocence until proven guilty—will finally topple Trump, rescuing us from his toxic incitements to hate, division, and violence.