Joseph Mccarthyism Essay

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For the duration of the 1950's America was absorbed with the fear of the Communists taking control of the country. Joseph McCarthy, a Republican Senator from Wisconsin, heightened the fears many Americans already possessed. McCarthy had a deep hatred for communists, so he devised a plan to make American’s hate communists as much as him, and also had hopes that it would get himself re-elected. McCarthy gave a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia where he held up a piece of paper announcing, "I have here a list of 57 known Communists who are currently employed by the U.S. State Department." Shortly after his speech, McCarthy changed the number of communists in the U.S. State Department from 57 to 205. America had felt safe and at peace from the communists. Now; however, they felt uneasy and panicked at the thought of communists working in their own government. Americans started to demand the names of these people listed on McCarthy's "Blacklist." Congress then started attempting to seek out the people on McCarthy’s list. A particular group that was closely examined was the actors and actresses in Hollywood that McCarthy declared to be communists. Joseph McCarthy used and abused his power of being a senator. In doing so, he created chaos and destruction in the lives of many people, and in most of America. Joseph McCarthy followed strict, right-wing republican rules and is considered to this day to be an extremist. Revealing that the communists, who all of America greatly feared, were working so close created a sense of fear. Americans felt uneasy and unsafe at the thought of the enemy working in their government. Part of McCarthy’s plan was to use the fears and feelings of peril to create an outright war against the communists. He w... ... middle of paper ... ...regarded whatever happened afterwards. Tons of people had their lives ruined by McCarthyism. They lost jobs and years of work and reputation they had built up. They were hunted down like the Salem witch-trials due to any suspicious activity or gossip. All of this happened because of Joseph McCarthy held up a piece of paper with supposed communists, a list he was not able to show later on. It seems as though he used America and proved them to be complete fools. The entire nation was left in utter shocked and fear. Americans were now more terrified than ever that an atomic bomb would be dropped by the Soviet Union communists. What many of them didn’t realize; however, was that Joseph McCarthy had already unleashed the worst upon the country. He had dropped his own version of the atomic bomb on America when he held up that piece of paper including many innocent names.

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