66 years ago Republicans dethroned a Trump like Republican demigod

December 2, 1954, sixty-six years ago today, the Senate censured Republican Senator Joe McCarthy for bringing disgrace upon that august body with what became infamous as McCarthyism. The censure vote was narrowly structured to appeal to the senators’ sense of decorum and respect for the Senate, but it was essentially their way of stopping a treasonous authoritarian doing enormous damage to American democracy. Using his demagogic appeal to tens of millions and his chairmanship of the Senate Permanent Investigations Subcommittee, McCarthy spread fear and terror by accusing any of his imagined enemies and detractors as communists, pinkos or fellow travelers. Thousands suffered ruined lives thru immoral firings; some committed suicide

McCarthy’s disgraceful conduct during the televised Army-McCarthy Hearings spurred the Republican led Senate to take McCarthy down. Republican Senator Ralph Flanders introduced a resolution calling for the censure of his fellow Republican, who Flanders declared, ran his subcommittee "contrary to senatorial traditions and brought the whole body into disrepute”. When the vote came 5 months later, 22 of 44 Republican Senators voted for censure, ensuring its bipartisan legitimacy, the backlash from their Republican base be damned.

We ponder in sorrow today where is the Senator Flanders of 2020 who will initiate action to dethrone the traitor in the White House? And where is that 50% of patriotic Republican Senators who will push that effort over the goal line to redeem American democracy?