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Joseph Mccarthy Trump And The Crucible

1917 Words8 Pages

Charlotte Dunn
Roger Arsht
English 10
12 September 2017

Commonalities in The Crucible, McCarthy, Nixon & Trump: Will History Repeat? In the mid-20th century, Americans feared the infiltration of Communism. The Soviet Union had amassed great power and the threat of a nuclear confrontation was at the forefront of the American psyche. China, too, had become a powerful Communist threat. The breeding ground for McCarthyism was fertile. Paranoia permeated. In Arthur Milers parable of contemporary life, The Crucible depicted Salem, a religious community, mired in evil. The forest was the devil’s domain, and Salem was encircled by forest. Paranoia permeated. U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy became notorious for the false accusations that “more than …show more content…

Nixon was zealously trying to get reelected. A team was dispatched to the DNC HQ to wiretap phones and steal documents. Trump’s ‘smoking gun’ is a memo in which President Trump instructed the FBI director to “let this go”, referring to the FBI’s investigation of Trump and his associates, and whether they colluded with Russia to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. The memo is documented evidence that Trump is possibly guilty of the very same crime as Nixon - obstruction of justice and abuse of power. Both men are accused of seeking to block FBI investigations that were getting too close to home. The picture coming into focus bears a striking resemblance to Watergate where the real trouble centered on the coverup of crimes more so than the crime itself. In The Crucible, Abigail made this statement just before she started her accusations: “I danced for the devil; I saw him; I wrote in his book; I go back to Jesus; I kiss his hand.” Abigail, McCarthy, Nixon and Trump have this in common: they have all made deals with the …show more content…

Since then, his approval rating has dropped by 12%, and currently, only 33% of American approve of his job performance. 54% say they are embarrassed to have him as president; 26% say they are proud. 60% say Trump believes his is "above the law," and 57% say he is abusing the powers of his office. 71% say he is not level-headed. Pundits agree that it is nearly impossible to get re-elected with only a 33% approving rating. Yet if anything, Trump has demonstrated the the impossible is possible - for him. Amidst the Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon resigned from office with a very low approval rating of 24%. If Trump continues down the same path that he is currently on, he will “hit Nixon’s departure numbers in another (8)

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