Joe HonickJoe Honick
Just as the late and unlamented Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy once targeted anyone he felt fit to label communists, unpatriotic or worse, the candidate now carrying the banner of the Republican party is currently wielding similarly dangerous, accusatory language regarding his opponent and the entire election process, all while conveniently omitting his own questionable history.

Joe must be smiling at the prospect of someone carrying on his legacy.

What most media have failed to discuss is the obvious fact that Trump is using old McCarthyistic methods to appeal to the working class in a bid to suggest that he, a boastful product of the extreme upper class, will make jobs abroad return to America. This is a fraudulent promise, for several reasons, including the fact that the tens of thousands of jobs he says he can reclaim have helped keep consumer and industrial costs down.

What also has not been examined sufficiently, if at all, is the powerful professional public relations techniques that have been applied by skilled private operators throughout the Trump campaign. Who those operatives might be and how much they’re being paid to work the Trump campaign is just as important for review as the myriad citations of fund raising success by Clinton.

Also hardly emphasized anywhere is the fact that Trump and his allegedly fraudulent real estate “university” go on trial mere weeks after election day. Even during the so called “debates,” the idea that Trump would be the first presidential candidate under indictment was mentioned with hardly a follow-up.

As this sordid campaign draws to a close, the newest threat comes not only from Trump but his interesting array of celebrity followers and media commentators. From the latter there are now daily suggestions that a Trump loss would be cause enough to rebel against our so called “rigged” election result.

Sadly, there’s a history behind such un-American activity, and much of the reason for this and other failures in campaign reportage can be traced to our inexcusable lack of any historical connection to current events, as if even our most diligent newsreaders and panel participants even know much about political and national history.

In the 1930s, a consortium of right wing industry critics of Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to recruit a retired Marine Corps General named Smedley Butler to lead an armed effort to replace FDR's government with a fascist operation. Butler, the only winner of two Medals of Honor, blew the whistle, even as the paid PR operatives of the organizers helped ridicule the military hero.

However this vulgar election campaign plays out in November, the country has not been accorded the remotest decency from virtually any direction. The only thing McCarthy lacked at the time were more modern means of media communication that can now be used to further position his dangerous ideas toward any end.

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Joseph J. Honick is president of GMA International in Bainbridge Island, Wash.