‘Have you no sense of decency?’

At my age, routine is crucial just to get along. “Remember to take your morning pills.” “See the physical therapist at 10.” “Make an appointment to have your toenails clipped the next time you have your regular haircut.” Important things.

The need to keep order is more than just appointments and pills. It’s what passes for intellectual stimulation as well. I keep informed by sitting at my computer to start my day. Before breakfast, there’s food for thought. Every morning it’s the same: the online Gazette, The New York Times, and, unfortunately, email from Donald Trump. You never know what will be in the papers, of course, so it’s nice that I can depend on TRUMP-VANCE to keep me up with yesterday or a decade ago.

I did recoil a bit this morning when my bad eyes read, “Dear Idiot” as the salutation. Then I got it right, “Dear Patriot.” A real idiot and a real patriot are different, but I think a fake patriot and a real idiot do think the same, sound the same, and probably vote the same.

A lot of pro-Trump-Vance email depends on a common enemy — “socialists” and “leftists,” and in a throwback to censured, red-baiting Sen. Joe McCarthy, Sen. Marco Rubio recently wrote, “I want to make sure this downright communist tactic hasn’t reached you.” Rubio talks about something Kamala Harris did and it is so absurd, I won’t even repeat it.

A quick aside: There was once a small Communist Party in the United States. There were Stalinists and Trotskyists, according to the FBI; about 70,000 at its top strength. They were described as“A disciplined organization that demanded strenuous commitment and frequently expelled members.’’ The CP was not an open mass organization in the manner of the Socialist Party or the League of Women Voters. Membership levels remained below 20,000 until 1933 and then surged upward in the late 1930s, reaching 66,000 in 1939, falling off during the Nazi-Soviet detente, then rebuilding after 1941 as the U.S. and the Soviet Union joined in a World War II alliance. Party membership surpassed 75,000 at the start of 1947 before starting its Cold War decline. About half lived within spitting distance of New York City.

Back to the mail. The message this morning from Donald (why is he always Donald? I guess a diminutive doesn’t fit him, the size of his head or body.) speaks of “Comrade Kamala.” It feeds nonsense to the masses who cheer when Trump belches.

I heard Sen. Joe McCarthy speak once at the University of Minnesota. He stumbled up a single stair to the platform, gave a drunken burst of ‘‘comrade’’ name calling and stumbled when he left … As a matter of fact, a drunken McCarthy and a sober Trump sound somewhat alike.

The Republican Party rose up in censure of McCarthy. In a hearing on his conduct, Army Counsel James Welsh, born in Primghar, Iowa, graduate of Grinnell before getting his law degree at Harvard — at a key moment asked McCarthy, “Have you no sense of decency?” It somehow sparked the end of Joe McCarthy.

It is past time for responsible Republicans to ask “Donald, have you no sense of decency?

Norman Sherman of Coralville has worked extensively in politics, including as Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s press secretary.