At long last, have you no sense of decency?” With those words, and in full view of the American people, Senate Legal Counsel Joseph Nye Welch proceeded to expose the reckless destruction of Joe McCarthy and the era of McCarthyism.
As Wisconsin’s junior senator, Joseph McCarthy cynically and recklessly exploited legitimate Cold War concerns over possible communist influence and infiltration of our institutions as his own personal cudgel. Over time, McCarthy came to accuse anyone who opposed him and his aggressive tactics of being a communist sympathizer. In doing so, the test he applied to identify communist and “enemies of the state” was one that only he could properly undertake and administer. Before it was over, hundreds of budding careers were ruined, livelihoods lost and reputations destroyed.
Today, the left’s reckless charges of “racism” and bigotry are the new McCarthyism. The formula is simple: If you oppose leftist policies or expose leftist hypocrisy, you are a racist. If you believe in economic prosperity and free market you are a bigot. If you support the rule of law and law enforcement, you are a white supremacist. If you are a person of color, you are supposed to support radical leftist policies otherwise you will be labeled a race traitor or a sellout.
That’s why, when CNN commentator Michaela Angela Davis accused every single Trump voter of being racist, most liberal pundits nodded in agreement. Davis was channeling McCarthy when she explained that racism exists everywhere in subtleties that only people like her can properly identify. She warned how there are “so many different levels of racism and how it works itself out.” Like McCarthy, Davis believed she alone can determine who is racist, who is evil and who is good.
When then Florida GOP gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis noted during his campaign that his African-American Democratic opponent is “articulate,” leftist pundits jumped all over his comment labeling the compliment as a racist “dog whistle”– a clue that only the trained and progressive ear could properly discern.
Similarly, during the confirmation hearings of the Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, left-wing alarmists frantically warned that Kavanaugh is secretly a white supremacist. The evidence? A female aide seated behind him during confirmation hearings was accused of subtly flashing white supremacist symbols. Never mind that this aide’s mother is of the Jewish faith and her father is Latino, or that she was simply folding her arms as most people do. Leftist opinion leaders explained that only they could properly determine if these were racist signals and that others should readily accept these determinations.
It’s no wonder then, when Nike announced controversial anti-police crusader Colin Kaepernick was their new spokesperson, professional stock traders refused to offer analysis. As the stock plummeted, losing over $4 billion in value on a single day, analysts remained silent. “There’s no upside to commenting on Kaepernick,” said one market expert. In fact, they feared the “racist” label.
The issue is very personal to me, born in Colombia, I went through the immigration system and am proud of my U.S. citizenship. My siblings and I were raised by a single mother. Our father was brutally murdered in the streets, another victim of drug crime and drug lords.
As an outspoken conservative, I joined the Trump campaign in 2016 — a move that sparked vicious attacks from the left. The worst of these — threats of violence, sexual assault and even death — came from other people of color. I had “sold out my kind” and was a closet racist. Of course, in the campaign context, I pushed back by calling out these people for their lies, hypocrisy and hatred.
When I joined the Trump administration as deputy director of communications at The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, leftist outlets brought back these attacks, using them as the foundation for a series of stories accusing me of racism. The left could not allow a dark-skinned immigrant with a heavy Spanish accent; a leader of a Latino coalition and with dozens of African-American, Asian, Jewish and Latino friends, to fill a communications role in the Trump administration.
Ben Carson gets the same treatment. A bright African-American and pioneer in neurosurgery — his mother, though under-educated herself, pushed her sons to read and believe in themselves. Carson went from being a poor student to receiving academic honors and eventually attending medical school. Carson’s achievements include performing the only successful separation of conjoined twins, Carson has been called a “Coon” by Ivy League Professor Anthea Butler during his presidential campaign, he was also called “house slave” by the online mob. Another victim of the left-wing bounty system.
More disconcerting is the fact that regular people who are not as prominent or in the public eye are not exempt. Even children, whose identities and wellbeing are traditionally safeguarded, are not either. In recent weeks, regular Americans were subjected to the all- too common hasty progressive judgment by a large contingency of media pundits, celebrities and politicians. They rushed to label and publicly condemn Covington Catholic School students, 15 and 16-year-old boys, as hateful racists. Why? They were white, male, Catholic, attending a March for Life rally, daring to wear a red Make America Great Again hat, while being engaged by a group of Native American activists.
Yet, somehow these rules don’t apply to leftists like New York Times editorial board member Sarah Jeong. Jeong has used Twitter to express vile and hateful opinions such as “Dumbass f—-ing white people marking up the internet with their opinions like dogs pissing on fire hydrants” or “It’s kind of sick how much joy I get out of being cruel to old white men.” She coined the hashtag #CancelWhitePeople.
But Jeong is a liberal Asian female. She’s anti-Trump, and a progressive socialist. The left defends her, explaining away her statements as being misunderstood and declaring that she is not, in fact, a racist. After all, in their minds, they are the only ones who can truly discern if she is a racist. Her job is safe!
Despise these obvious double standards, Americans elected Donald Trump to the presidency, despite all of this nonsense. In doing so, perhaps we are now approaching our own “have you no sense of decency?” moment. Maybe the guile and deception of the dark swampy left will actually be drained from the public arena. Then, perhaps we can return to meaningful discussion and debate on the issues and the merits of what matters to our future as the united people of America.
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Ximena Barreto is the Director of Communications and Grassroots Strategy for Frontiers of Freedom. She is a nationally recognized spokesperson and ambassador for America and its constitutional system of limited government and maximizing individual freedom. A legal immigrant from Colombia and now a proud citizen of the United States, Barreto has drawn staunch opposition from the left for being a Latina willing to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, free enterprise and the concept that America is an exceptional nation with unparalleled freedom and opportunity.