In McCarthy’s speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, he mentions how there were communists throughout the government. He targeted those treated well by the Nation, such as the wealthy and white-collar workers. Attacking people born with silver spoons in their mouths, those who are born privileged, and claiming the ones in the government are Communists increases the amount of fear the Americans had that communism was spreading. Despite McCarthy’s accusations that these people were communists, he never provided evidence that supported his claim. McCarthy’s “witch hunt” for Communists, also known as McCarthyism, was a movement he used to make himself more powerful and to discredit the Truman
Ellen Schrecker’s The Age of Mccarthyism begins with an extensive essay consisting of a following of the path of domestic subversion within the USA starting in the 1930’s to the 1950’s. She explains the starting points and the peak of the rising anti-communist campaign in the states. Due to the struggle against the Soviet Union at the end of World War II, the anti-communist movement became the ideological center of American politics. Joseph McCarthy, U.S. senator, became the notorious face of a period during American history characterizing the widespread fear of Communist subversion. He explained the American people that communist and soviet spies had infiltrated almost everything people felt were their safety nets (the government, school,
It was extremely unpatriotic for McCarthy to publicly criticize his own government. " (T)his is the first time in my experience … (T)hat I have heard of a Senator trying to discredit his own government" (Truman). During the years of the Cold War, many countries looked up to America for alleviation and solace. However, as you can see, even early in his career, Truman identified
In Roberts’ view, “At the height of his power in 1953, McCarthy became chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and used the platform to make further charges of Communist spying.” (Roberts 21). Particularly, this shows the secrets the government has been hiding which leads to Americans questioning their loyalty. Moreover, this ties into Americans betraying each other because it goes to show how McCarthyism held the power to enact this action. The government 's mischievous actions led everyone not to trust them.
During this time in the world people were scared of the red scarce. People would say that Joseph Mccarthy was the modern
Clearly, McCarthy makes an intellectually valid assertion that Americans must be careful due to the obvious growth and war with the
McCarthy manipulated the media, told outrageous stories about the communist conspiracy in the United States, and used his power and America’s fear to besmirch any opponents as “communist sympathizers” to make sure he remained at the top. Actually, most conservative members of Congress supported McCarthy because it helped them gain votes during elections. The majority of McCarthy 's movement attacked liberals and members of the Democratic Party and this aided anyone who was not part of those topics and organizations. Then McCarthy began to target the Army because they wouldn’t favor David Schine, one of his former investigators, who had been drafted in. “Senator Joseph McCarthy began hearings investigating the United States Army, which he charged with being ‘soft’ on communism.
“In a narrow sense McCarthyism is the name given to the attitudes and practices of Senator Joseph McCarthy (1908-57) and his followers engrossed in investigating and purging purported security risks, especially those supposedly with ties present or former, actual or imagined, to Communist groups and governments during the late 1940s and early
Response to Senator McCarthy’s “Enemies From Within Speech” With anti-communism being the dominant political issue during the Cold War, hysteria and paranoia spread throughout the minds of Americans. The “Enemies From Within Speech” delivered at Wheeling, West Virginia in 1950 by Senator Joseph McCarthy focused on worsening that national fear. Senator McCarthy used ethos, metaphor, and hyperbole to create the notion of disloyalty within the federal government. In order to persuade the American public in a convincing way, Senator McCarthy appeals to their ethics.
With all of the accusations going around, people were forgetting that everyone can have their own opinion. Edward R Murrow, a television host of See It Now bashed McCarthy by saying “’We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty’” (Roberts, 2). Murrow was saying that just because a person disagrees with what the president or a government official says, does not mean they are a communist. The United States has freedom of speech, and citizens can say whatever they want about the government.
This quote highlights how prioritizing personal gain over important principles can be detrimental to society as a whole. Also as J. Ronald Oakley wrote in his essay, “The Great Fear,” "McCarthy, however, had no social or economic program and did not seek control of the military or government. He was not a fanatic or fascist, and he never tried to organize or lead any movement. As historian Richard Hofstadter later wrote in his The Paranoid Style in American Politics, the slovenly senator "could barely organize his files, much less a movement’"(207, the great fear). This quote can be used to argue that McCarthy's actions were not based on any serious political agenda or principles, but rather on personal ambition and a desire to exploit the fears and anxieties of the American people for his gain.
It was during his early career as a Judge that “McCarthy made the needs of children involved in contested divorces a priority.” this extract from Thomas Reeve’s biography that suggests McCarthy experienced a troubled childhood that could have lead to desire for power. During his fist election campaign, he accused his opposition, Robert La Follette, of War profiteering despite having personally profited from WWII. His early monotonous Senate career erupted in 1950 when he produced a list of 205 suspected communists exclaiming “The state department is infested with communists…this list of names were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.” The majority of accusations had little or no verification and is seen as propaganda aimed to exploit the fear of communism that had arose from the cold war.
He said that at least 205 members of the State Department were members of the communist party. This was after it was released to the public that a couple named Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were secretly communist spies who were staying in the U.S., stealing nuclear weapon secrets. With McCarthy’s remarks such as “They [a communist spy] could even be your neighbor!’ scarring the American public’s mind, many were on edge.
We can compare McCarthy’s actions to those of Kellyanne Conway and Sean Spicer’s ‘alternative facts.’ McCarthy made speeches about those who were Communists, but there was barely a scrape of truth to many of
Amid of the so-called perfect era of the 1950s, political figures of the United States protagonist on their very own soap opera of gossiping, which eventually affected the moral of Americans. The exemplar article “The Smearing of Joe McCarthy: The Lavender Scare, Gossip, and Cold War Politics” by Andrea Friedman discusses the hearsay nature surrounding Senator Joseph McCarthy. The 1950s generation believed in conventional heterosexual relationships. Allegedly Senator McCarthy was suppressing his sexual desire for men. An image was enough to spark gossip to romantically link Senator McCarthy to attorney Roy Cohn along with other allegations.
