2024-05-2300:18 Status:Investigate Tags: Fear and Terror Conservative (Modern) McCarthyism Tribalism Populism
In the 1950s, fear fueled by Soviet espionage, rise of communism in China, acquisition of the atomic bomb by USSR. This made for the perfect environment for someone like Joseph McCarthy (Republican) to accuse the Democratic government of infiltration by communists. âI have here in my hand a list of two hundred and five people that are known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping the policy of the State Departmentâ - McCarthy
He never found a spy.
With the new demographic of people coming into the US (immigrants and refugees from WWII), women, etc. there was a fear that all these new people with their new ideas were progressing America away from âThe good old daysâ. McCarthy understood that if he pitted âreal Americansâ and their âtraditionalâ way of life against the new Americans, and their technology, atomic bombs and ideology, then he would rally support to regress America, and instill anti-communist rhetoric. With Roy Cohn (lawyer who helped prosecute against the Rosenbergs) McCarthy forwarded the Army Hearings in which members of the military were accused of communist sympathy. As McCarthy was brought up by his abundant presence on television, he was brought down by failing to prove that the US army was a communist supporting organization. He came off as a paranoid bully.
Joseph Welch asked his famous question: âHave you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency? If there is a God in heaven, it will do neither you nor your cause any good.â And he drank himself to death. :)