Demagoguery In Politics

During times of uncertainty and instability, highly appointed individuals in society can gain their status and people’s approval by arousing their audience members’ emotions and prejudices rather than through fair debate and argument. In politics, demagoguery is utilized by a speaker to persuade an audience with propaganda rather than the quality of his or her argument. Demagoguery refers to the political strategy that appeals to an audience’s emotions and prejudices with certain characteristics and elements. In junior Senator Joseph R. McCarthy’s speech to the American public, he manipulates demagoguery to appeal to the American audience on the wrongdoings and undermining communist actions of Edward R. Murrow, the Educational Director of

Scapegoating is a scare tactic used by the speaker to demonize a particular group and persuade one’s audience that the out group is satanic and evil (“Characteristics of Demagoguery”). McCarthy chronicled the influence of communism in the past where, “ under their system, the individual was nothing; the family was nothing; God did not even exist. Their theory was that an all-powerful State should have the power of life or death over its citizens without even a trial; that everything and everybody belonged to the rulers of the states” (McCarthy). The audience undergoes a sense of displacement and anxiety, which brings about a sense of righteousness to the in group and their viewpoint. The audience is a group of individuals who wholeheartedly believe that Americans have individual rights, power, participation, and opinion on how the government should operate. This implication of the driving force behind communism generates a demonic and satanic image of communists to the audience. McCarthy’s generates and drills this satanic image of the communism supporting out group on his behalf, therefore his audience will side with the in group and support his argument. The outgroup, or the communists, are scapegoated because they had clever people such as Murrow to “sponsor invitations to students and teachers to attend indoctrinational schools in Moscow. They trained Communists in every country in the world. Their sole purpose was [to] infiltrate the government, and once Communists were in government, they in turn brought others in” (McCarthy). Their primary goal is to destroy what makes up the American government, thus riling up the anger from McCarthy’s supportive audience members. These communist individuals who aim to infiltrate the American government by any means are seen as demonic and satanic by the anti-communist audience