Welcome to Trump analogy week!
What Trump and Joe McCarthy have in common, obviously, is a similar brand of opportunistic paranoid right-wing populism. Their differences are as follows:
- Trump has the style of a stand-up comedian. You can be entertained by him even if you find what he says absurd or appalling. McCarthy didn’t have that kind of charm; he just made your flesh crawl.
- McCarthy ruined the lives of a lot of innocent people. Trump hasn’t done that–yet.
- If Trump somehow gets elected President, he will be in a position to do vastly more damage to the nation and to the whole world that McCarthy ever did.