There is an old saying that everything new is old again. In the late forties and early fifties there was a hysteria of communist conspiracies everywhere. The moniker for this was “reds under the beds” and many careers were lost after the accusation of being a communist sympathizer. The main instigator of this paranoia was an obscure senator from Wisconsin, Joe McCarthy, who was locked in a tight reelection campaign in 1948.
He subsequently proclaimed he knew of Russian subversives who were hidden in everything from government, the military and the entertainment industry. A simple accusation from him was enough to cause the victim to not only lose their job but to be blacklisted and criminal charges to be brought. The hysteria was so great that anyone who opposed him before the fever cooled in 1954 got eaten for breakfast. Lyndon B. Johnson, senate majority leader and future president, advised his colleagues to lie low and refrain from comments. He said if you wrestle with a skunk, you’ll both smell the same. Two presidents, Truman and Eisenhower, had to be careful with their handling of McCarthy to avoid being accused themselves until 1954 when the alcoholic senator was sent to a sanitorium.
Today the issue is not communism but cultural issues which politicians use to bludgeon their opponents just as McCarthy did. In a broad diverse nation like the United States there will always be a myriad of cultural issues but the reason we can’t reach some type of accommodation on any of them is it is profitable to keep the issue alive in order to give your supporters a reason to keep reelecting you.
