I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “Everything Old is New Again.”
A recently published book, Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism, and the Making of Modern America by Clay Risen, makes this type of argument. (Purchase it on Amazon here.) It hit the shelves several weeks ago to stellar reviews. This quote from Foreign Affairs is typical:
Risen, a historian and journalist, believes that the roots of today’s political hard right are to be found in the Red Scare that lasted from the mid-1940s to 1957, when lawmakers tried to root out communist sympathizers from American public life. The MAGA movement that backs President Donald Trump is not identical to those that supported Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s or animated the influential right-wing John Birch Society in the 1960s, but, according to Risen, they share enough common cultural DNA that ‘knowing where we are today requires understanding where we were then.’
Throughline from Past to Present?
Risen says this about his work:
This is a work of history, and as such it is not concerned with drawing parallels between the past and the present. I leave it up to the reader to find those as they will . . . I nevertheless felt that there was a throughline to be found running from the era of the Red Scare to our current political moment.
There is a lineage to the American hard right of today, and to understand it, we need to understand its roots in the Red Scare.
For a time, between the late 1940s and the end of the 1950s, a suspicion of all things left-wing was pervasive in America’s everyday life, and insults like “pinko” and “commie” were common.
The Red Scare marks a period in our history when fear of Communist infiltration penetrated our society, leading to book bans, loyalty programs, and blackballing.
(Note: Cold War Studies has posted several timelines and other relevant articles about the period under discussion. I’m listing links to them at the end of this post.)
What Was the Red Scare?
In Red Scare, Risen argues that anxiety and paranoia resulted from the “intersection of two powerful impulses:” first, the legacy of the New Deal, and second, the onset of the Cold War.
The New Deal spurred a cultural war, facilitated by the dislocation of the Great Depression and the 1930s progressivism that was then in vogue. The left supported Franklin D. Roosevelt and his “New Deal,” looking to government to create “guardrails around the economy.”
Among other things, the New Deal opened doors to women, African Americans, and labor, creating a more diverse and tolerant atmosphere in the country. Not surprisingly, there was a backlash. A 1937 Conservative Manifesto proposed a common set of principles for opponents of Roosevelt and the New Deal, including “reliance upon the American form of government and the American system of enterprise.” The manifesto was about policy, but the opposition the New Deal engendered was also about cultural differences regarding civil rights and women in the workplace.
The country was changing rapidly, and many Americans were resistant to change. Roosevelt and his administration were targeted, but, like today, elites in general were also denigrated.
Two Ideas of America
In essence, the differences revolved around two ideas of America. One idea was built on an expansive vision of government as a guarantor of the rights and welfare of all its citizens. The other was built on a retrograde nostalgia for an America built on privilege and exclusion, inherited wealth, and white male entitlement. This belief was a cornerstone of the conservative agenda during the 1930s, but it moved into background with the attack by Japanese forces on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
In wartime, saboteurs and spies always command attention. World War II was no different. Existing intelligence agencies – primarily the FBI – grew in size as new ones were created. More than 125,000 Japanese immigrants and Americans of Japanese descent were moved to internment camps.
The war ended in August 1945, but life had changed. Soon the US and the Soviet Union – allies during the war – would face off as enemies. Russian leadership would mount aggressive interventions in Eastern Europe, installing political units loyal to Stalin. To many Americans, this meant that ‘the commies were coming’ whether through internal or external means.
Churchill Warns and Truman Acts
In March 1946, Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Great Britain made his Iron Curtain speech at Westminster College in central Missouri.
In 1947, Truman instituted a loyalty program whereby every individual employed by the Federal government was to be screened for membership in subversive organizations. As Risen states:
Far-right noisemakers and anti-New Deal Republicans who had spent the last decade shouting into the void about Communist subversion suddenly had a ready audience . . .
By 1953, the Chicago Tribune . . . the country’s leading voice of the right, was openly railing against the ‘Communist-controlled New Deal’ . . . . Among their weapons was HUAC (the House Un-American Activities Committee).
Alternative Arguments
It’s important to note that not everyone agrees with Risen’s argument about the roots of today’s divisions. Just do a Google search for “roots of today’s culture wars” to find disagreement.
One example can be found in a review of Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option. In the University of Chicago’s Religion & Culture Forum, Russell Johnson says that “The American culture war has deep historical roots, going at least as far back as the Civil War.” Other groups argue that the culture wars began in the turbulent 1960s.
In the end, as Risen notes, it’s up to you, the reader, to decide.
Want more information? Take a look at these Cold War Studies timelines and posts.
COLD WAR RED SCARE COLLECTIBLE: HOW TO IDENTIFY AN AMERICAN COMMUNIST (LOOK MAGAZINE 1947)
THE NEW DEAL, WWII, AND THE RED SCARE (1928-1944): A TIMELINE
THE RED SCARE INTENSIFIES AND THE COLD WAR BEGINS: A TIMELINE
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Featured Photo by Don Sniegowski (Flickr)
