Where Does MAGA Come From?

If anyone thinks the GOP’s descent into MAGA madness is a new chapter in American politics, either you were born after 1945 or you don’t know much about the political history of this country over the past seventy-five years.

Let’s start this history lesson with a speech delivered on February 9, 1950, by the junior Senator from Wisconsin, Joe McCarthy, who announced he ‘had a list’ of Communists who infiltrated the State Department and established a spy ring. He would later claim that similar Communist-led groups were working within the Truman Administration, The Voice of America, and the Army.

McCarthy’s chief counsel was none other than Roy Cohn, who was Donald Trump’s attorney until he admitted suffering from AIDS, at which point Trump dumped him as fast as he could. Incidentally, Cohn was later disbarred because he swiped some money out of an elderly lady’s trust. Both Michael Cohen and Rudy Giuliani also did legal work for Trump and also have been disbarred. Quite a record, I must say.

Anyway, back to McCarthy.

My parents came of age during the Great Depression, the only time in this country’s history when Americans faced famine and some actually starved. My parents were both children of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe who came over here after World War I and brought with them the usual hodgepodge of half-baked…