McCarthyism and Red Scare

In the late 1940s and late 1950s there was a huge increase of anticommunism in the United States that led to McCarthyism and the Red Scare. There was a huge loss of jobs and security in America. At the end of World War II many citizens started to fear communism and how America was going to lose its freedom. They believed communist was a bad thing, something evil, and it was going to destroy the country. For many citizens it was the next threat that was going to challenge America. They feared that the First Amendment of the Constitution was going to vanish and freedom will be gone as communist takes over.

One man who helped spread that fear was Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, McCarthy was known as the outspoken anticommunist politician, Roberts, (2010) established that "McCarthy claimed in February 9, 1950 of having a list of 205 communists working in the State Department which brought about a decade of nationwide investigations to unmask Communists in the U.S. society." Therefore, many Americans believed that he was the one that was going to save the country from becoming communist. McCarthy wanted everyone to believe that America was in jeopardy of losing its freedom. He was led out to protect America the Bill of Rights and with that he took the freedom of many individual with his false accusations. With those accusations he began a witch hunt better known as the Red Scare and McCarthyism.

Anticommunism and McCarthyism were two different things, McCarthyism feared communist, which was unpredictable, unfair, and suspicious on every citizen. With that he violated the civil rights, grow distrust among citizens, unemployment to increase, and loss the security of America. However, anticommunism was the true belief of freedom, opinions, and values of others, unlike in other communist country those were wrong and unacceptable. McCarthy fooled America by making them believed he was anticommunist and maybe at one point he was but with his crucial acts he was by far an anticommunist.

As these historical events occurred the media had a very interesting perspective on how the Anticommunism and McCarthyism was covered. The media was not agreeing with McCarthy's views, they were in a disagreement path believing that McCarthy was wrong and opposition. The media was making it seem that it was McCarthyism fault that citizens were so afraid and bringing more attention to the communist situation then there would have been. The media started making films and cartoons discussing anticommunism and McCarthyism, letting America know what was going on with the Red Scare.