Anti-communist movements were popular in the United States after World War II. Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy from Wisconsin was the most famous anti-communist activist. His first few years in the Senate, he was viewed as an ineffective legislator; thus in order to be reelected to the Senate seat, he used anti-communism as a "winning issue". From 1950 to 1952, McCarthy accused communists of taking over the government. McCarthy's actions led to the coining of the term McCarthyism, which was used to describe the unprecedented accusations of disloyalty without evidence. He even went as far as to charge the Democratic Party as a whole of 20 years of treason for allowing Communists to infiltrate the government. McCarthy only made such allegations in the Senate due to his legal immunity; this immunity protected him from being sued for slander. Republicans also did not attempt to stop McCarthy's attacks because they believed it would help them win the 1952 presidential election if the public saw that they were attempting to rid the nation of communists. McCarthy's downfall came in 1954 when he accused the U.S. Army of being of having communist members. A nationally televised Senate investigation was launched and due to McCarthy's tendency to bully witnesses, he lost public support. Eventually, the Senate condemned him for improper conduct that "tended to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute." Three years later, McCarthy died of alcoholism.
-Amelia Wong and Polly Cho
FIRST COMMENT! I like how everyone uses that picture of McCarthy, he was a funny character. I honestly never heard about him, so thank you for teaching me about him with your detailed and concise writing!
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That picture of McCarthy always scares me a little. Nicely written article though, it gave a good concise description of McCarthy's role in history. And lol at his death.
ReplyDelete...and yay you discovered the "change font" feature.
An interesting article about and interesting man. It's amazing how much impact one man and his opinions can have on the entire nation. This story also shows the real corruption behind government; the Republicans were willing to allow such ludicrous speech from McCarthy just to win votes.
ReplyDeleteThis post is very easy to read and nice and succinct. The information is neatly presented and easy to obtain. Good job!
well written article on McCarthly and nice detail info. about his life.
ReplyDeleteI like your article! It's really detailed and interesting to read. =]
ReplyDeleteWell detailed, you provided a lot of information on his methods.
ReplyDeleteyour article is very easy to follow, your font just confused me for a moment :]
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