Analysis Of A Decade Of Fear By Sam Roberts

Sam Roberts in the article, A Decade of Fear, argues that Americans turned against each other because of McCarthyism. Roberts supports his claim by explaining, contrasting, and demonstrating. The author’s purpose is to persuade the audience in order to assure Americans that McCarthyism was extremely impactful. The author writes in a speculative tone. I strongly agree with Roberts claim. McCarthyism resulted in Americans turning against each other because of fear of communist takeover, overbearing political power, and protecting their reputation.

Clearly, Americans feared the idea of a communist takeover. One reason Americans were filled with anxiety about communist infiltration was because, “... in 1949 when Communists led by Mao Zedong took

In the article, “Seeing Red”, large numbers of the people he did accuse of being a communist, were just democrats or people who were more liberal than others (Simpson 2). To enumerate how many people were accused of working with communist Russia is unknown. One example of a ruined reputation would be the Hollywood Ten. According to Roberts, “Congress began a high-profile investigation of Hollywood, and the House Un-American Activities Committee won the studios' cooperation in seeking to purge the movie industry of people whose Communist sympathies might influence popular films. The result was the Hollywood ‘blacklist’” (2). Dalton Trumbo is an impressive example of someone wrongly accused of being a part of communist Russia. In fact, a movie was created about him, his family, and how his name was blackened by media sources and the government just because he was a democrat. Everything about the film was severe and genuine, just like the trials, people had to progress through. In particular, normal everyday people were in question when McCarthy went on a rampage to try and obtain credibility and gain

For example, others felt that it was necessary to question these people and even throw them in jail for absolutely nothing, in certain cases. Statistics show that approximately 34+ people were accused during this period of time. Of course, few of those people were guilty, but people comparable to Trumbo were innocent and had to deal with jail time for zero reason at all. Another reason people may have a different perspective was because Joseph McCarthy was an intelligent man and insanely persuasive to his audience. Roberts straightforward attitude throughout this article he wrote was highly helpful to understand the hardships people had to move through. Anxiety was definitely a tremendous part in these trials. Certain people may believe that McCarthy had a valid point in these random accusations, but I understand he did most of this out of fear and deserved the repercussions of his