The Most Important Turning Points in Senator Joe McCarthy's Political Career

The Most Important Turning Points in Senator Joe McCarthy's Political Career

Joe McCarthy gained fame at the height of the 'Red Scare' in America,

between 1945 and 1952. During the Red Scare, people were very worried

about the rise of communism in the world.

In 1946 there was the discovery of a large communist spy ring in

Canada. It began to make people paranoid about communists in trades

unions. At that time, Joe McCarthy was a senator for the Republicans;

he was in direct opposition to President Truman, a Democrat.

The issue of the Red Scare was an important way to get votes and many

programs and bills were passed to stop the infiltration of spies and

communists into American society. The Federal Employee Loyalty Program

in 1947, and the 'Smith Act' of 1940, made it illegal to 'advocate the

destruction of the American government'. This is when Mr McCarthy

began his crusade against communism.

In 1949 China became communist and the fear of the American people was

growing. They needed a hero to appear to be doing something

significant against the perceived rise of communism in America.

With the discovery of the accused 'communist traitors', Alger Hiss in

1948, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1950, the public consciousness

was getting more agitated.

McCarthy made a famous speech in 1950. He explained to the American

people how much of a problem communism was to America. The problem is

never of invasion, but of constant infiltration. He urged the American

people to root out these communist traitors from society, claiming

they had renounced God.

The main point of his speech was to tell the public that Truman was

soft...

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...tnam War, they

both made a lot of mistakes as far as trying to get the public to

trust them in their decisions, especially as they chose to hide much

from the public anyway. However Nixon finished the war and as such

resolved the crisis far better than Johnson. Nixon also dealt with the

Black civil rights more confidently, by stamping out the entire 'Black

Power' movement which had been endangering society for the past few

years.

Although not doing as much as it was intended to, Johnson's 'great

society' was not unpopular; he was at least trying to improve America.

Ultimately, however it was Nixon who undermined the trust of the

American people the most because of 'The Watergate Scandal' when he

lied to the public constantly. He resigned because of this dishonesty

and he never recovered his political influence.