American Political History - The Red Scare and McCarthyism - Assignment Example

The attitude among the American citizenry was that communists will soon take over the world if they do not do something to contain it, as Pres. Harry Truman had warned earlier. It became prevalent because of the “guilt by association” principle without any solid proof of disloyalty (Faragher et al. 694). Anybody is a suspect and it was relatively easy for anyone to accuse someone of being a communist such as members of labor unions.

The extensiveness of the red scare at home can perhaps be partly explained by mass hysteria. People were not sure who is whom, or who were the card-carrying members of the Communist Party in America. At any rate, the rise of McCarthyism, as it came to be called, was basically an unacceptable form of ideological and political extremism. In the words of the observers, it was essentially demagoguery combined with witch-hunting. It was extensive since anyone could accuse anybody and “ . . . it was an irresponsible and dangerous tactic . . . the reckless persecution of innocent or relatively harmless dissidents . . . “ (Jenkins 2). When people are not sure who is the enemy, then anybody can become a suspect. Fears can become exaggerated when people lacked information and so imagination and irrationality took over. In those dangerous times, communism was on the march and it seemed unstoppable. People were attracted to its ideology of equality for all of whatever race or class (Fitzgerald 24).

Joseph “Joe” R. McCarthy (1908-1957) was a Republican senator from the state of Wisconsin. He was a rarity among American politicians because he was a devout Catholic and a part of his religious beliefs was strong opposition to communism because it was atheistic which is opposed to any kind of organized religion. Communists like to call religion an opiate (or opium) that deprives normal people of the faculty to think clearly and rationally so they do not believe in a god or any supreme being who determines human affairs. Rather, the main logic of communists is that the people themselves can chart their own destinies. McCarthy was considered credible because people did not suspect he had ulterior motives in his agenda when he accused people as secret communists; his hidden aim was to promote his political career. But he was guilty of blatant lies, like his exaggerated war exploits (Simkin para. 5).

Moreover, another source of credibility for McCarthy was he was being fed some information about certain people by the new director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), J. Edgar Hoover. Since the FBI had access to sensitive information on people due to its extensive surveillance activities, McCarthy would weave this information with insinuations against people suspected to be communists or have some communist leanings or sympathies. The outbreak of the Korean War further bolstered the credibility of McCarthy as people look at anyone who is progressive, liberal, or socialist as a communist or at least a sympathizer and who is guilty of disloyalty to the country and should be tried for treason (Smith para. 1).

Another reason for the credibility of McCarthy was that people were often intrigued by conspiracy theories and the way he accused certain employees in the government gave credence to his accusations because it was plausible for some communists or sympathizers to have joined government service. In the absence of solid evidence, the tendency of people is to believe what they hear if lies are mixed with half-truths. Often, it was merely gossip that acquired a life of its own, like what happened in Hollywood's own red scare (Sbardellati 9).