At the League’s annual meeting on June 28, members were fascinated by the history of McCarthyism and its lessons for today, presented by Daniel Chard, WWU Assistant Professor of History.
During the early years of the twentieth century, a small percentage of the US population experienced an interest in communism. After World War II, the revolution in China, and the first successful test of an atomic bomb in the Soviet Union, real fear gripped the public leading to what historians call the second red scare. Like Trump, McCarthy was able to take advantage of new media (TV in his case) to get power and attention. There were some real consequences to the anti-communism crusade: stifled political debate, a weakened labor movement, delay in the struggle to end Jim Crow racism, stagnation in the movement for women’s equality, and defeat of universal healthcare. Two people were executed, a few hundred imprisoned or deported, and 10-12,000 people fired from their jobs.
Unlike today, the vast majority of the population were complicit. People believed that communists didn’t deserve constitutional protections. Today Trump’s domestic enemies include immigrants, Muslims, antifa, and transgender people.
But both movements obfuscated their true purpose: “to discredit the notion that government exists to provide for the public good and to roll back the democratic welfare and regulatory state.”
But the most important lesson of McCarthyism? It ended!
Watch the full recording here.
Note: the video is of poor quality, but you can listen—the audio is acceptable.