The thing about tipping points in history, is that they’re only easy to see in retrospect.
Take, for example, the scorching takedown of rabid anti-communist Senator Joseph McCarthy by fellow republican, and Maine senator, Margaret Chase Smith in 1950.
In her “Declaration of Conscience,” in which she denounced “the reckless abandon in which unproven charges have been hurled from this side of the aisle,” she said, “I don’t want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the four horsemen of calumny — fear, ignorance, bigotry, and smear.”
Her courageous Declaration was largely met with silence or indifference.
It took the passage of time, McCarthy’s misplaced investigation of communists in the military, but in 1954, most notably, the few words of Chief Senate Counsel for the Army, Joseph N. Welch, to fatally injure McCarthy. Welch was objecting to McCarthy’s false accusations against one of his own attorneys.
We remember the words, “Have you no decency?” But, those sprang from a longer passage.
“Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness." When McCarthy tried to continue his attack on his attorney, Welch angrily interrupted, "Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?"
It was the tipping point. McCarthy’s national popularity cratered, he was ostracized by his party, and ignored by the press. His alcoholism spiraled, and three years later, and, at 48 years old, he died a broken man.
We have watched in horror Donald Trump’s apparent bullet-proof rise, and exemption from normal political gravity. The hundreds of daily scandals that would have sunk any other politician at any other time are brushed away. Universities, law firms, media giants, and CEOs have all bent the knee to Trump. And, until now, Trump’s popularity has been unaffected by the corruption, treachery and lies.
But gravity (as are climate change and vaccine efficacy) is a scientific fact, and gravity may finally have come for Trump.
Just as Margaret Chase Smith’s speech to the Senate didn’t initially take down McCarthy, it appeared that our marches and signs, postcard writing, calls, and getting out the vote would have no effect on MAGA. Then, it did. The recent election showed us it did.
Only time will tell whether or not we have reached a tipping point, but, it could very well be that the American people are saying to Trump in furious chorus, “Have you no sense of decency?”
**My thinking on this topic was inspired by the excellent production about the showdown between Margaret Chase Smith and Joseph McCarthy in, Conscience, recently presented by Jewish Repertory Theater.