With ‘DeSanctimonious’ jab, Trump channels Joseph McCarthy

Always alert to an opportunity to position himself at center stage, former President Trump held a rally on Saturday in Latrobe, Pa.

Ostensibly a platform for the Republican candidacies of Mehmet Oz for senator and Doug Mastriano for governor, Trump turned the gathering into a promotion for his own 2024 presidential restoration. 

“We’re winning big, big, big in the Republican Party for the nomination like nobody’s ever seen before,” Trump said, referencing an unspecified poll. “There it is — Trump at 71. Ron DeSanctimonious at 10 percent.”

This broadside sparked immediate speculation of a brewing feud between the former president and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a one-time Trump protege who is running for reelection and is seen as his leading challenger for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. DeSantis has not pledged to abandon his candidacy in the event Trump announces a bid.

Several conservative commentators voiced disappointment at Trump’s sarcasm and divisiveness on the eve of a crucial set of midterms. Toning it down on Sunday, he urged voters in Miami to back DeSantis for reelection.

But while he might not realize it, Trump’s “sanctimonious” jab echoed language used by another controversial Republican seven decades ago on a televised stage that contributed to his ultimate demise.

For three months in 1954, America was gripped by gavel to gavel coverage of the Army-McCarthy hearings. Senator and anti-communist demagogue Joseph R. McCarthy (R-Wis.) had launched a campaign against the U.S. Army, charging that security was lax at the top-secret Signal Corp facility at Fort Monmouth, N.J. 

In response, the Army accused the senator of seeking preferential treatment for G. David Schine, a recently drafted subcommittee aide who was close to Roy Cohn, chief counsel to McCarthy’s Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

To resolve the controversy, McCarthy temporarily stepped down as chairman, replaced for the duration by Sen. Karl Mundt (R-S.D.). The hearings are best remembered for the dramatic June 9 exchange between McCarthy and Joseph N. Welch, chief counsel for the Army. When McCarthy attempted to smear as a communist a partner at his law firm, Welch thundered at McCarthy “Have you no sense of decency, sir?”

But the following week, an even more visceral exchange took place between McCarthy and Sen. Stuart Symington (D-Mo.). A Yale graduate, Symington had served as president of Emerson Electric and in 1947 became the first secretary of the Air Force. He was elected as a Democrat in 1952 despite the electoral landslide of the Eisenhower Republicans.

The two had clashed throughout the hearings, with Symington making clear his disdain for McCarthy’s methods. Then, on June 14, they argued over how members of McCarthy’s staff handled classified materials, with Symington suggesting that given the sloppiness of protocols in the subcommittee’s office, some staff might themselves be security risks.

As the two challenged each other to testify under oath to explore the veracity of Symington’s claims, an electrifying exchange ensued. As seen in the final frames of the documentary “Point of Order,” McCarthy, in his singsong tone, began one of his accusatory rambles:

“(Symington) got the political adviser of the Democrat party to guide undercover the Republican secretary of the Army, and number two, while our friend sanctimonious Stu was -”

“Senator, I resent that reference to my first name,” Symington exploded. “You better go to a psychiatrist. I want no psychological bribes from you.” 

After more back and forth, Symington gets the last word as the hearings adjourn for the day:

“Apparently every time anybody says anything against anybody working for Senator McCarthy, he is declaring them and accusing them of being communists!” 

Despite the televised drama, the substantive results of the hearings were inconclusive. But it was the on-camera exposure of the McCarthy persona that began his decline. Along with the denunciation by Joseph Welch, the “Sanctimonious Stu” episode was one that had a major impact. 

In February 1954, Gallup indicated that 46 percent of Americans held a favorable, and 36 percent an unfavorable, opinion of the Wisconsin senator. But by June, only 34 percent were favorable, while 45 percent had an unfavorable opinion. Television was in its infant days, but the medium’s impact was already apparent.

Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis may not be fated to have as dramatic a confrontation as McCarthy and Symington 70 years ago. But if the former president finds himself in a Republican primary debate, it would behoove him to choose carefully the adjectives he might use to describe his opponent. The Florida governor, another Yale graduate, may well have studied the transcripts from June 1954.

Paul C. Atkinson, a former executive at The Wall Street Journal, is a contributing editor of the New York Sun.