A few days ago, I wrote about the famous takedown of Senator Joe McCarthy in 1954 by the attorney Joseph Welch, which began McCarthy’s downward political slide. Welch said,

“Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. . . . Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?”

Cruelty. Recklessness. No sense of decency. Sixty-two years later, that fits Donald Trump like a glove.

Trump, we have learned again and again, has no sense of decency. But what about decent Republicans who are disgusted with their presidential candidate and are willing to put country over party? Are there any of those? The answer is a resounding yes.

Senator Susan Collins is the latest Republican to come out against Trump (though who knows, there may be more before you read this). 

“Donald Trump, in my judgment, would make a perilous world even more dangerous,” Collins told CNN’s Jamie Gangel. “I worry that his tendency to lash out and his ill-informed comments would cause dangerous events to escalate and possibly spin out of control at a time when our world is beset with conflicts. That is a real problem.”

And there’s the letter signed by 50 Republican security officials.

Fifty of the nation’s most senior Republican national security officials, many of them former top aides or cabinet members for President George W. Bush, have signed a letter declaring that Donald J. Trump “lacks the character, values and experience” to be president and “would put at risk our country’s national security and well-being.”

Mr. Trump, the officials warn, “would be the most reckless president in American history.”

And lest we forget, there’s also former Michigan Gov. William Milliken (R), Rep. Richard Hanna (R-NY), George W. Bush’s Treasury secretary Hank Paulson, former Sen. Larry Pressler (R-SD), GOP Donor Meg Whitman, Former Minnesota Gov. Arne Carlson, former Chris Christie communications director Maria Comella, and Jeb Bush advisor Sally Bradshaw. All these people have not only renounced Trump, they’ve said they’re planning to vote for Hillary. For more names, including the fence riders like our own Senator Jeff Flake, who has made some bold, courageous statements against Trump and his policies but still holds out hope he can support the guy, go to the list on Talking Points Memo.

Yes, Virginia, there are decent people in the world. I applaud them for their willingness to take a risky, politically unpopular stand (though the greater longterm risk may be in not knowing when to jump off the Trump train), even while I may disagree with their stands on issues.

I look forward to watching the list grow as Trump continues being Trump.

This article appears in Aug 4-10, 2016.

16 replies on ““Have You No Sense of Decency?” Part 2: Decency Edition”

  2. Yes, we’re going through one of our periodic major realignments of political affiliations. Anyone who thinks that has mainly to do with how SCARY Donald Trump is should think again. It has mainly to do with the fact that neither major party finds itself able at this point to serve the interests of the majority of people in the country. Angry, disillusioned right-ish constituents voted for Trump over any of the establishment Republicans, and now the Establishment is protesting by voting for the Establishment candidate the Democratic party forced through with its dishonest, unclean primary process.

    That is a genuine cause for Democrat celebration, right? Or maybe not.

    If you look at one set of doors on the D-train your will see conservatives hurrying on. Look at another set of doors and you will see liberals unable to stomach Clinton’s militarist, neoliberal agenda taking the emergency exit.

    Clearly you don’t like the Trump Train, David. All of your recent posts seem designed to emphasize that the Trump Train is a train to HELL, and in this post we learn that it is SO hellish that even diabolical Republicans are rushing off of it.

    This doesn’t obscure the fact that those who are honest still need to ask themselves if the D-train has been re-routed by the money interests in such a way that it will be taking us to a place where neither we nor anyone else in this country who supports a “progressive” policy agenda would want to go….and that may be part of the reason why so many anti-progressive people are willing to board it.

  3. Stick a fork in it. Trump’s “reboot “lasted less than 48 hours. He doesn’t have the stuff, plain and simple. It’s also painfully clear that he doesn’t want the job.

  5. If the American people ever needed a demonstration of why the United States Supreme Court “Citizens United” ruling was the biggest and most dangerous threat to this country they have to look no further than this year’s presidential election. Those behind the scenes have slowly been working up to this point in earlier elections, but because of the blatant and obvious detrimental impact on the democratic process, we are witnessing what amounts to two corporate giants battling for the presidency of the United States by any means necessary.

    “I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.” Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

  6. Agreed on the evils of Citizens’ United, to some extent, but this year actually illustrates that it’s not an absolute trump card, so to speak.

    In fact, in the Republican primary, the vast majority of establishment wealth was arrayed against Trump, yet he won handily. In the Democratic primary, virtually ALL of the establishment wealth was arrayed against Bernie, yet he gave the anointed nominee a helluva run for her money. Yeah, he spent a lot of money, but almost all of it was from small donors.

    This proves two things: 1) Vast sums of money do not automatically buy elections, and 2) People are completely fed up with the monied, self-serving political establishment–so fed up that they reach for anyone who sounds and seems different, be it a buffoonish narcissistic ignoramus on the right, or a rumpled old-school socialist on the left.

  8. its also well worth adding that jeb bush had the most money thrown behind him by far of any republican candidate and it didnt give him a snowball’s chance in hell. there’s a reason republicans want to reform the primaries, it isn’t fixed enough for them yet.

  10. Ic69hunter

    I think right now Wall Street and the banks are just heavily invested in Clinton with an option to buy if she wins the presidency.

  11. All of these top people are not the ones that the current Trump supporters are going to listen to. Needs to be a regular citizen who listens to the news, is high school educated and whatever the other demographics are. I think they missed the boat by skipping the convention and now are trying something else outside of the standard.

  12. Safier ~

    So you believe “Have you no sense of decency?” fits Trump?

    Whenever I read one of your columns, I can only think of the phrase “You can’t fix stupid.”

  13. Trump can’t fool all the people all the time, but he has been proving that he can fool some people all the time, every day, for over a year now.

  14. Trump might be fooling some people. You are correct.

    However, the sad part about this whole election cycle is that Democrats are continuing to support Hillary even knowing about her lack of ethics and malfeasance in both her personal and government life. That says far more bad about Democratic voters than it does about the Republicans.

    For categorization purposes, I am voting for neither of the above, and you should not either. If you can’t vote for Gary Johnson, at least cast a ballot for Jill Stein.

  15. Trump reboot, no way. This is what Leader McConnell wanted for his party. Be a party of doing nothing. A party of trash talk. The current GOP is dead now. No once can have respect for a Republican, esp. those that make excuses for Trump messages. He is a sick, mentally ill and senile old man, But the GOP has many of those, Sad how the Conservatives support this sick man.

  16. What will take down Hillary first, her health or her lies? The Clinton Foundation fraud is about to be exposed. To learn more turn off the mainstream media. They have left you ignorant and ill informed.

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