We Came to Our Senses Then. We Can Again.

Roy Cohn is one of the darkest through lines in modern American politics.

As chief counsel to Joseph McCarthy, he helped engineer a politics of fear, intimidation, lies, and public destruction. Years later, he would mentor Donald Trump, passing along the same toxic playbook: attack relentlessly, never admit wrong, invent enemies, and use cruelty as power.

The medium changed. The poisonous playbook did not.

But here’s what matters: we beat this before.

McCarthy terrorized the country for a time. He ruined lives, cowed institutions, and made fear feel patriotic. But Americans eventually saw through the bullying. People found their backbone. His abuse of power was exposed, and his hold on the country broke.

So why not now?

Trumpism wants us to believe this moment is too far gone, too dangerous, too entrenched to defeat. History says otherwise. We have faced this kind of demagoguery before, and we came to our senses before.

Bullies are powerful only as long as people are afraid to stand up to them.

We got out from under one in the 1950s. We can do it again.

We Broke McCarthyism. We Can Break Trumpism.