In 1954, Republican members of the United States Senate confronted a political cancer in their midst: the scourge of McCarthyism.  This was a name given to the modus operandi of the Republican Senator from Wisconsin, Joe McCarthy, Chair of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.  If a Senator from either party repudiated McCarthy and/or his tactics of defamation, distortion, and baseless allegations regarding Communist sympathizers in government, he or she faced retaliation at the ballot box from him on Election Day.

Even the handsome young Senator from Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning book, Profiles in Courage, refrained from attacks on “Tail Gunner Joe.” Kennedy’s father, former Ambassador to Great Britain Joseph P. Kennedy was a key ally of McCarthy.

As Lyndon Johnson, the then leader of the Senate Democrats put it, Jack Kennedy seemed to have more profile than courage. This image of JFK endured until his presidency, when he displayed boldness and honor in both foreign policy and civil rights for African-Americans.

Yet in the 1950s, there was a fearless Republican US Senator from New Jersey, Robert Hendrickson, a lifelong resident of Woodbury, the county seat of Gloucester County.  He established a national profile in courage by repudiating Joe McCarthy and Joe McCarthyism.

He also became one of the first US Senators nationally to follow and support the chief Republican opponent of McCarthyism, the famous Senator from Maine, Margaret Chase Smith.  While he was not reelected to the US Senate in 1954, he earned for himself a place in history that will stand as major source of pride to the Garden State.

Bob Hendrickson was one of the first Republicans who officially opposed the late Senator Joe McCarthy, signing the committee report censuring the Wisconsin Senator for his conduct.  And nobody supported the dissent of Margaret Chase Smith more emphatically and loyally than Bob.

On June 1, 1950, Senator Smith delivered a fifteen-minute speech on the Senate floor, known as the “Declaration of Conscience,” in which she denounced “the reckless abandon in which unproved charges have been hurled from this side of the aisle.”

Mrs. Smith was a loyal and active Republican.  Yet she was impeccably honest and principled in saying, “I don’t want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the four horsemen of calumny—fear, ignorance, bigotry, and smear.”

Bob Hendrickson was one of six Republican Senators who signed on to her Declaration. And they both

voted for the resolution to censure Joe McCarthy in 1954.

Now fast forward to 2021 and the campaign for the seat in the US House of Representatives from the Seventh District of New Jersey.

The putative Republican candidate in that race, Tom Kean, Jr. has acted totally contrary to the courageous and principled example set for him by Robert Hendrickson.  While Robert Hendrickson repudiated McCarthyism and Joe McCarthy, Tom Kean, Jr. has made an unholy alliance with the nefarious Kevin McCarthy and by his silence condoned all aspects of the present cancer on the Republican Party, Kevin McCarthyism.

As a state Senate Republican Leader, Tom Kean, Jr. has exhibited the qualities of courage, issue acumen, decisiveness, and honor.  Yet in terms of taking any action to distance himself from Donald Trump, Trumpism, and his henchmen, Kean has acted in pathetically timorous fashion.  In fact, he further established himself as a hopeless Trumpist acolyte in appearing with Kevin McCarthy on a WABC radio show and a New Jersey video blog during the Republican House Leader’s visit to New Jersey as the honored guest of Kean’s campaign kickoff.

And Kean’s refusal to follow the leadership of Liz Cheney is indicative of something more than political pusillanimity.  He repudiated the Bush-Cheney administration, in which I proudly served, during his Senate campaign of 2006.  In this Congressional campaign, he rejects any possibility of an alliance with pro-democracy Liz Cheney.  Yet he simultaneously refrains from uttering a word of criticism of anti-democracy, authoritarian Donald Trump.  This is totally bizarre.

I had my own differences with Dick Cheney and his people while I served as Bush 43 EPA Region 2 Administrator.  Compared with the vile, racist, corrupt Donald Trump who incited the MAGA mob to stage the January 6 insurrection against the United States, however, Dick Cheney is a virtual saint.

Remember how Tom Kean, Jr. refrained from attending the New Jersey fundraiser at which Dick Cheney appeared on his behalf during that 2006 Senate campaign.  Yet he had no hesitation in attending Donald Trump’s January, 2020 rally in Wildwood.

And the behavior of Tom, Jr. in the 2006 campaign regarding President George W. Bush was even more startling.  He went out of his way to blast Bush 43 as having made “horrendous” mistakes on his Iraq policy.  Yet I do not recall him uttering a word of praise for Bush’s Presidential Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR), a landmark, historic achievement that made George W. Bush America’s all-time favorite president in Africa.  Historians have begun to upgrade the presidential rating of George W. Bush because of PEPFAR.

In placing the Tom Kean, Jr. alliance with Kevin McCarthy in clear prospective, it is necessary to compare Joe McCarthyism with Kevin McCarthyism.  And Kevin McCarthyism is a far greater and more malignant danger to our Republic than Joe McCarthyism ever was.

The best definition of Joe McCarthyism can be found in the definitive biography, A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy, by David M. Oshinsky.  He describes Joe McCarthyism as the pattern and practice of slandering and bulling innocent citizens as Communists and Communist sympathizers, irreparably damaging their lives in the process.

Yet as Oshinsky notes, “He (Joe McCarthy) was not a would-be dictator.  He did not threaten our constitutional system, but he did hurt many who lived under it.”

By contrast, the actions of Kevin McCarthy were nothing less than knowingly assisting Donald Trump in his efforts to establish autocratic rule in America.  Unlike Joe McCarthy, Donald Trump was and is a would-be fascistic dictator.  And Kevin McCarthyism consists of the Republican House leader’s actions in attempting to return Trump fascism back to power in America in 2024 by 1) subverting the rule of law, and 2) obstructing any investigations that would bring about final accountability of Trump and the MAGA January 6 mob.

Donald Trump’s actions before January 6, 2021 and throughout that day constituted nothing less than an attempted coup d’état against the United States of America.  This coup would be implemented by acquiescing in and encouraging the violent actions of the fascistic MAGA mob in the nation’s capitol.

The violence was aimed at preventing Congress from doing its Constitutional duty – announcing the receipt of the certified election returns from the fifty states and the District of Columbia, thus confirming the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as President and Vice President, respectively.  It was the final governmental action before their inauguration could proceed.

Kevin McCarthy has emerged as the great enabler of the fascism of Donald Trump, acting as the Great Obstructionist to prevent a bipartisan, fair, and lawful investigation of the 45th President’s betrayal of his office and his instigation of the coup d’état.  The Trump attempted coup constituted the worst abuse of power and threat to American democracy ever posed by an American president. And Kevin McCarthyism was part and parcel of it.

Yet the actions of Kevin McCarthy last week provide a basis for Tom Kean, Jr. to renounce his alliance with the House Republican Leader and embrace the cause of Liz Cheney.   Specifically, I refer to the attempt by McCarthy to sabotage the work of the House Select Committee on January 6 by appointing to it Republican Congress members Jim Jordan of Ohio and Jim Banks of Indiana, who both voted in January against certifying the results of two states which contributed to President Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump.  He made these appointments after travelling to Bedminster following the Kean, Jr. campaign kickoff to kiss the ring of Godfather Donald Trump.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rightfully rejected both these appointments.  And Jim Jordan proved his vile racism beyond any reasonable doubt by joining with Donald Trump in denouncing the Cleveland baseball team for their long overdue action in changing their name and logo from their originally pejoratively intended “Indians” to “Guardians.”

But for the troubled House campaign of Tom Kean, Jr., the McCarthy attempt to sabotage the House investigation can be a godsend.  By using it as a basis to rescind his unholy alliance with Kevin McCarthy and join forces with the pro-democracy forces of Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, the two Republicans who remain on the House Select Committee on January 6, he can attract a national network of volunteers and financial contributors, breathing new life into a badly faltering campaign.

By following the historic precedent of Robert Hendrickson, Tom Kean Jr. can remove the Trump albatross that thus far constitutes an insuperable burden to his campaign.  Otherwise, Tom Kean, Jr. appears irrevocably fated to continue his streak of defeats in each of his campaigns for federal elective office, this being his fourth.

Alan J. Steinberg served as Regional Administrator of Region 2 EPA during the administration of former President George W. Bush and as Executive Director of the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission.