McCarthy & McCarthyism: An Introduction
In the 1950s, the senator from Wisconsin named Joseph McCarthy ventured to reveal the truth about communism attack in the USA. For about 4 years, McCarthy relentlessly tried to disclose the individuals who had been identified as communist agents in various government departments and posed huge security risks to the USA.
In view of invasive Cold War tensions amongst USA and USSR, one should anticipate that Senator Joseph McCarthy’s crusade to unearth the truth regarding communist influence in the USA should be appreciated and praised from all and sundry. However, it did not happen. In contrast, McCarthy was strongly criticized by the mainstream American media who labeled him with scathing remarks.
In spite of a series of disparagement started against Senator McCarthy by his political opponents in the American Congress and in the mass media, for many years he continued in his endeavors to reveal the facts regarding communist intrusion of the US government departments. In fact, McCarthy was trying to identify if person with links to the American Communist Party or helping the objectives of global communism generally held sensitive positions in the federal departments.
Many historians have shown historical evidence that proved that communism created a real danger to the USA. They claimed that even if McCarthy was frenzied, he was proving the real threat (See,).
Whilst some historians were sensitive and supportive of these endeavors, McCarthy’s endeavors made persons in the American Administration and in Congress tremendously troubled, and when he criticized the US Army, the government decided to remove him from the political office he held. McCarthy spent much of his political years vigorously stressing regarding the conspiracy by the global communism to rob America’s vital strategic secrets, though the synchronized criticisms against him by the American government at that time and media leaders had done major harm to his reputation.
McCarthy’s exit however did not stop the campaign to harm his reputation. Indeed, after his demise McCarthy had to undergo to a campaign of constant criticism which is considered unparalleled in American political history. Thus, Joseph McCarthy became perhaps the most despicable political personality in the US history.
The term “McCarthyism” was coined to explain the insanity of the McCarthy period in which fear and mistrust ruled and thus modern thinking, logic, and common sense, and Joseph McCarthy brought American democratic ideals at the verge of destruction in his crazy attempt for his personal aggrandizement and lust of power. In the modern concept, Joe McCarthy is depicted as the embodiment of narrow thinking and fanaticism, and people are encouraged not to repeat the horrors of “McCarthyism” in the American politics.
McCarthyism by McCarthy: An Analysis
The analysts believed the McCarthy period as one of the most discreditable and a disconcerting era in the US history. This period was named after the anti-Communist Senator, Joseph Raymond McCarthy which showed great concern over the Communist expansion and influence all over the world. Joe McCarthy is considered as one of the most influential and controversial senator in the US history played the major part in the movement to safeguard the American internal security systems of the threat of Communism supported by the USSR. His sensationalist allegations, crude statements, and political activism made Senator McCarthy one of the most despicable political personalities of modern times. Despite the of the fact more than 4 decades years after his demise, the political analysts are still discussing about the political career and legacy of Joe McCarthy and the effects of “McCarthyism” has had on the present American civil liberties.
A number of reputed analysts have written pioneering works that evoke some new-found transparency to some hotly contested issues. For instance, Ellen Schrecker, a noted historian in her book termed the McCarthy period as “misguided or worse,” and depicts that era as the “most widespread and longest lasting wave of political repression in American history.” Whilst Schrecker’s viewpoints of McCarthy as a fierce demagogue, another analyst Arthur Herman who considered McCarthy as an “authentic working class” who had been “proved more right than wrong.” In his biography, the author tried to absolve McCarthy’s status, by portraying McCarthy as a “new kind of hero, the people’s tribune, who would save the republic by exposingthe liberals’ complicity with evil.” Moreover, the historian David Oshinsky considered McCarthy as something in between these two explanations. He presented a more modest viewpoint in his biography stating that McCarthy was not in fact a “would be dictator” and did not “threaten our constitutional system, but he did hurt many who lived under it he must bear some responsibility.”
There are nevertheless some aspects of the McCarthy life history that stirred much discussion. Senator McCarthy was part of the cohort of American politicians who understand the Communists as a devastating danger to the American lifestyle and values. All over the Cold War between the USA and the USSR, the rivalry against the USSR soon came to dictate US foreign policy. The country’s legislators considered the USSR as intimidating, and the government officials considered domestic Communism as a global Russian conspiracy. These apprehensions dated back to troubled times due to the USA social and economic reforms of the New Deal period. The takeover of the Communist government of the Peoples Republic of China created even more alarms.
McCarthy instigated the anti-Communist with great zeal and ferocity. He was termed by Schrecker as a “renegade.” The key features of his political activism were wild allegations, sloppy, wrong statements, and offensive remarks against his opponents. As Schrecker stated, McCarthy had much “chutzpah” and generally had little strong proof that any of the people he termed were Communists. Schrecker considered McCarthy had no worries about applying threats and bullying with utter lies if he wanted to get the job done.
Regardless of his outrageous and obnoxious behavior, McCarthy acquired much popularity since he had the skills how to influence the public’s apprehensions of the Communist threat. Schrecker observed that McCarthy was “noisier, more impulsive, and more skillful in gaining publicity than the rest of the anti-Communist network.” He influenced the media by propagating sensational allegations and scandals in the political world. The mainstream media simply published McCarthy’s allegations without verifying them. It was because McCarthy held the important position of the Senate and few could question the statements of McCarthy. As one media analyst stated, “It is unbelievable that a United States Senator would publicly and repeatedly make such charges if he did not have evidence to support them.” As his allegations got prominence in the media, McCarthy started to get huge support of his political views.
His Legacy
Since the demise of Joe McCarthy, there exists still a strong debate amongst political analysts on whether McCarthyism was an expression of irrationalism and aggravation in the US society or an acceptable reaction to a true danger to the American national security as a result of growing communist threats from the USSR. The analysts are generally much engrossed in the American politics in those eras that they could not help however consider their subject with a definite predisposition. As Schrecker studied this era she expressed her beliefs: “I do not conceal my sympathy for many of the men and women who suffered during the McCarthy era nor my agreement with much of their political agenda.” She criticized McCarthy as a sordid demagogue, a swindler, and a brutal person who could launch a treacherous attack on the American civil liberties. Herman however admitted that McCarthy did lie, distorted truths, and supported wild conspiracy theories; however that was the justified means since he rightly felt Communist penetrations in the federal government departments. Oshinsky on the other hand, described McCarthy as “unique,” “bold,” and “very effective,” however criticized his wild allegations that harmed American values and brought disrepute to the USA all over the world.
Schrecker and Herman had different conclusions on the lasting effects of the legacy of the McCarthy era. Herman stated that in spite of all evident negative views of McCarthy, he created the contemporary America’s foreign policy initiatives as the historians termed them as the “Cold War consensus.” Herman implied that in fact the result of extremism of McCarthy’s political activism that eventually caused a more moderate Cold War policy of the USA. The American politicians therefore restrained their rhetoric and the language about Communism and rather started discussing “peaceful coexistence” with the USSR. Publicly, the American leaders promoted for better relationships with the USSR, giving stress to treaties, though secretly, the USA started clandestine operations to check the Russian aggression..
On the other hand, Schrecker presented a stringent appraisal of the McCarthy legacy. She claimed that McCarthyism generated a massive political despotism that had the most detrimental consequences for the USA. She believed that McCarthyism disallowed social reforms to be promoted. She contended that McCarthy’s anti-Communist overindulgence was a model for the repression. She believed that McCarthyism advanced a general “sleaziness” in the US political field and that was its “main legacy.”
Now, it can be stated that whether such McCarthyism would happen again. Schrecker is of the view that it is plausible for many Americans to overlook similar injustice perpetrated for the sake of the American national security. As Herbert Lehman observed in 1954, “We have condemned the individual but we have not yet repudiated the ‘ism’” Indeed, his inference was that there could be a repetition of a new McCarthyism.
Conclusions
McCarthy is remembered as Herman’s stated, “America’s most hated Senator.” He was loathed and criticized because of his self-styled McCarthyism brand of politics that was cruel and his practices were unparalleled in the political history of the USA.
Bibliography
Bronner, Ethan. "Rethinking McCarthyism, if not McCarthy". New York Times "Week in Review" October 18, 1998.
Fried, Richard M., The McCarthy Era in Perspective: Nightmare in Red (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 45.
Herman, Arthur, Joseph McCarthy: Reexamining the Life and Legacy of America’s Most Hated Senator (New York: The Free Press, 2000), 16.
Oshinsky, David M., A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy (New York: The Free Press, 1983), 507.
Schrecker, Ellen, Many are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1998), xii.
Weisberg, Jacob. "The rehabilitation of Joe McCarthy". New York Times Magazine, November 28, 1999, pp. 116ñ23.
