Daily Herald opinion: In search of a sense of decency: A president’s behavior is not irrelevant to the strength of the nation

Historians widely point to an exchange between U.S. Army counsel Joseph Welch and Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy as the pivotal event leading to the end of the senator’s cruel and unconstrained campaign of unwarranted accusations about communist sympathies among Americans and their government institutions.

During televised hearings in 1954, McCarthy was advancing public claims that a lawyer in Welch’s firm had ties to communism, when the Army counsel could take no more.

“Until this moment, Senator,” Welch shot back, “I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness … Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

Seventy-two years later, it is too much to hope that we have reached such a tipping point with President Donald Trump. He has demonstrated his disdain for a sense of decency too many times and, indeed, purveyed his disregard into two terms in the White House and a seeming obliteration of the once-proud, once-dignified Republican Party. So, it would be naively optimistic to expect him to express regret for having posted on his Truth Social account blatantly racist images depicting former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama as apes. Nor is it any surprise that he steadfastly insists, “I didn’t make a mistake” in posting the meme, though he later took it down following a broad-based outcry.

What is more unnerving is the silence — sometimes rising to open defense — about an action by a U.S. president that would have severe repercussions for a 12-year-old student in junior high school.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was quick to lash out at the president’s critics, calling their concerns “fake outrage” and urging them to focus on “something … that actually matters to the American public.”

To such declarations, we are deeply saddened to have to ask, “Does simple human decency not matter to Americans?”

The president’s most devoted supporters have long since decided that any criticism of him, whether regarding his policies or his public behavior, is symptomatic of unregulated personal animus rather than reasonable political philosophy or social concern. It is a stunning line of reasoning that demands unfailing respect while excusing any outrage.

But surely there are some in the president’s camp who will rise — as South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, the Senate’s only Black Republican, almost did in declaring the post “the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House” — to condemn that which the most common element of common decency calls to be condemned. Where are they?

Perhaps they are preparing their speeches of support for this decent president’s extortionist demands that Penn Station and Dulles Airport bear his good name in exchange for his approval of funding a $16 billion tunnel connecting New York and New Jersey.

True enough, sending out petty, juvenile memes in the middle of the night on social media is not an impeachable offense, and even if it were, impeachment only emboldens Trump and strengthens his grievance-absorbed base. But some expression from Congress demonstrating respect and allegiance to minimum standards of human dignity would hardly be out of order.

For decency is a matter of importance to America. When the Founders signed the Declaration of Independence, they pledged not only their lives and their fortunes but also their “sacred honor.” The president of the United States, the nation’s most visible and prestigious leader, sets a standard for behavior that should guide every American from the youngest schoolchild to the most sincere adult. It is not naive hyperbole to consider decent respect for each other to be one of the strongest threads that holds a powerful and honorable democracy together.

Joseph McCarthy’s lack of it ultimately led to censure from his colleagues in the Senate. President Trump’s may not lead to such an official declaration more than seven decades later, but it should. It should at least rouse the integrity of any of those around him as well as any who support him to invoke him to discard these childish displays of temper and hostility — and provide at least minimal justification for the respect he seems so earnestly to crave.