Readers React: How are Trump’s cries of socialism much different from McCarthy’s red-baiting?
To the editor: As I read the L.A. Times’ article on the trend by presidents and other politicians toward “increasingly simple, straightforward sentences that a casual listener could more readily follow,†I recalled the staccato speech pattern of Sen. Joseph McCarthy addressing the 1952 Republican National Convention:
“Even if there were only one communist in the State Department, that would be one communist too many.â€
Similar to McCarthy, President Trump used the scare word du jour, “socialist,†in his Feb. 11 address to a rally crowd in El Paso, Texas: “So I again say to you — and I say it for the world to hear — America will never be a socialist country.â€
Substitute “communist†for “socialist,†and one would be hard-pressed to distinguish Trump from McCarthy.
Walter Gajewski, Long Beach
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