Trump: “Have you no sense of decency, sir?”

By Donald A. Collins | 30 September 2025
Church and State

(Credit: YouTube / screengrab)

You may recall and compare this to the days in 1954 when Senator Joseph McCarthy was intimidating everyone, including President Eisenhower.

The lack of response also from the then media to McCarthy’s onslaught based on his program of bringing many in front of his committee to accuse them of having communist ties went on for quite a time.

The widespread lack of response to McCarthy’s onslaught parallels much of the GOP today, when McCarthy tried to make everybody guilty who he could even vaguely link with communism could often lose their jobs, particularly in the media.

Of course it is a bit of a stretch to compare McCarthy to Trump since McCarthy could only just spoil one’s reputation and he had no power to fire people from official positions.

But today, because Trump will fire you if you don’t do his full bidding, integrity be damned!

1954 was, of course, an entirely different time in America, a gentler time when integrity still meant something and America was just not in any kind of economic crisis or conditions in the world were not so dangerous.

Then there was still a recognition that the UN had a role to play that could be significant, that we had by then formed the NATO alliance that brought stability to much of the world and of course the population of the world at that time was a little under 2 billion people whereas now of course it is over 8 billion and seemingly on track to reach twelve by the end of this century.

There still be a recognition that the UN still had a role to play that could be significant, we had formed NATO alliance that brought stability to much of the world and of course the population of the world at that time was a little under 2 billion people whereas now of course it is over 8 billion and seemingly on track to reach I’ve been in by the end of this century.

After the Jimmy Kimmell controversy Americans got instruction on the importance of freedom of speech as so clearly defined in the First Amendment of our constitution.

In June of 1954 McCarthy was picking an attack on the army as chairman of the Senate permanent subcommittee on investigations. He had quickly put his imprint on that subcommittee.

Here I begin to paraphrase from the Senate website article on the incident so memorable in defining the time we were in in 1954 as contrasted with where we are now.

Then McCarthy picked up a fight with the US army, with some claiming that the senator had sought preferential treatment for a recently drafted subcommittee aide. The senator stepped down from his role as chairman for the duration of three months, followed by a nationally televised spectacle known to history as the Army-McCarthy hearing.

When the army hired a Boston lawyer named Joseph Welch to make their case and on June 9, 1954, McCarthy charged that one of its attorneys had ties to a communist organization.

As a large television audience looked on Welch responded with the immortal lines that ultimately ended McCarthy’s career.

“Until this moment senator, I think I never really engaged your cruelty or your recklessness”.

When McCarthy then continued his attack Welch angrily interrupted. And this was these were his immortal lines: “Let us not assassinate this lad further senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency, Senator?”.

Overnight McCarthy’s immense national popularity evaporated. He was censored by his Senate colleagues, ostracized by his party and ignored by the press McCarthy died three years later, 48 years old and a broken man.

One remarkable question from a little-known lawyer named Joseph Welch turned the tables on this evil man and ended his hegemony about communism.

The echoes of this 1954-episode underline today’s loss of the GOP’s integrity. We are also reminded of another time of GOP integrity when in 1974 after the Watergate scandal exposed Nixon’s guilt Senator Barry Goldwater and Representative Hugh Scott confronted Nixon in the Oval Office and told Nixon he had lost Congressional support which caused Nixon to resign rather than ion face a trial and conviction.

Trump’s extensive retribution campaign in his 2nd term against a huge number of Democrat luminaries, capped with a Grand Jury, indictment of former FBI director James Comey we arrive at a unique watershed, never consummated in public before.

Clearly, Mr. Comey will not be convicted, but it will certainly complicate his life likely with a sizable legal expense, and the emotional trauma of being publicly attacked by the President of the United States.

Comey’s indictment will likely be a test of whether many other indictments of Trump’s long list of people scheduled for retribution because of Trump’s allegations will be continued. JD Vance promised more on CNN on 9/29/25.

Meantime, Trump’s multiple failures of governance, such as his aberrant tariffs guaranteed to raise consumer prices and his lack of success in bringing to meaningful negotiation of wars in Gaza, and in Ukraine are simply two items on a long list of his failures.

And of course, the controversy over the Jeffery Epstein files will continue to imply Trump’s obvious involvement.

No Joseph Welch, Barry Goldwater or Hugh Scott can be found in today’s Congressional GOP!!!

Do these gutless GOP Congress members have no sense of decency?? They should have joined Democrat members after Trump’s attempted coup on January 6, 2021, to convict him and send him to prison. Too late to get it, Mitch McConnell!! Your lack of integrity enabled Trump to pack the Supreme Court and now to try to steal our democracy which Trump is well on his way to doing!

Former US Navy officer, banker and venture capitalist, Donald A. Collins, a free lance writer living in Washington, DC, has spent over 60 years working for women’s reproductive health as a board member and/or officer of numerous family planning organizations including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Guttmacher Institute, Family Health International and Ipas. Yale under graduate, NYU MBA. He is the author of “From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013”, “Trump Becoming Macbeth: Will our democracy survive?”, “We Humans Overwhelm Our Earth: 11 or 2 Billion by 2100?”, “What Can Be Done Now to Save Habitable Life on Planet Earth?”, “Vote”, “Can Homo Sapiens Survive?”, “Will Choice and Democracy Win?”, “Can Our U.S. Survive 8 Plus Billion of Us”, “Economic Growth: A Cancer on all Earthly Life”, “On the Precipice of Political Disaster in 2024”, “Democracy at Red State Risk”, “Does Trump Go to Jail or to The Oval Office?”, “Trump: Pardon or Punish?: The Nixon Precedence Was Not A Trump Coup Denied!”, “Common Sense: When will Trump be Impeached, Indicted, and Exited?” and “Trump–unrestrained dangerous liar!”.

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