'It is a national feeling of fear and frustration that could result in national suicide'

74 years ago, Republican senator Margaret Chase Smith stood up in the chamber and spoke her 'declaration of conscience' against McCarthyism.

It's a speech for reason over fearmongering, democracy over demagoguery. Most of all it was a speech that required the courage of putting country over party, and so is a speech very much set to the mood of the present day.

Heather Cox Richardson featured it in her newsletter yesterday, and my dad emailed me to make sure I knew about the speech. I do, of course. It’s on many …