'Joseph McCarthy was right': MAGA influencer generating 'fear' throughout Trump’s Cabinet

21 August

Laura Loomer in Des Moines, Iowa on January 10, 2024 (Gage Skidmore)

Far-right author Ann Coulter drew plenty of criticism when she vigorously defended Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisconsin) in her 2003 book "Treason: Liberal Treachery From the Cold War to the War on Terrorism." McCarthy, Coulter argued, wasn't a charlatan or an extremist, but rather, a deeply concerned American who realized how great a threat communism posed during the 1950s.

Coulter's critics wondered if she was praising McCarthy as a way of trolling liberals and progressives. Now, 22 years later, McCarthy has another defender who is even to the right of Coulter and is also known for trolling her political opponents: conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer.

In an interview with The Atlantic's Michael Scherer published on August 21, Loomer declared, "Joseph McCarthy was right. We need to make McCarthy great again."

Scherer warns that Loomer is acting in a McCarthy-like fashion during Donald Trump's second presidency.

"Quite often, Trump doesn't just listen to Loomer — he does what she wants," Scherer warns. "In just the first seven months of Trump's second presidency, she successfully lobbied Trump to end Secret Service protection for Joe Biden's children. She has pushed the president to fire six members of his National Security Council, remove three leaders at the National Security Agency, end an academic appointment at West Point, fire the director of the National Vetting Center at the Department of Homeland Security, dispatch an assistant U.S. attorney in California, and remove a federal prosecutor in Manhattan."

Scherer continues, "After Trump's intel chief stripped 37 current and former national-security officials of their security clearance Wednesday, she claimed credit for first labeling 29 of them as threats to Trump."

According to Scherer, "top Trump advisers" are "unable to cast her away" and "regularly work with" Loomer "behind the scenes." And Loomer, Scherer notes, often attacks fellow Republicans she considers insufficiently MAGA — even far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia).

Loomer told Scherer, "I would rather be feared than loved,” Loomer added. “I don’t need to be loved by people who work in Washington, D.C."

Michael Scherer's full article on Laura Loomer for The Atlantic is available at this link.

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