Authoritarianism 101: The Rise of Joseph McCarthy

Student Voices
You’re listening to Authoritarianism 101, part of the hashtag AHR Syllabus Project, produced by the American Historical Review.

Syrus Jin
In this episode, what are the fears that drive public support for authoritarianism? Historian Darren Dodchak discusses the context for when Joseph McCarthy first became famous at Wheeling, West Virginia, on february 9, 1950

Darren Dochuk
My name is Darren Dodchuk. I’m Andrew V. Takis Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame, and here I teach and write in modern US political history, with an emphasis on religion and politics, as well as energy and environment. 1950 Wheeling, West Virginia, life was pretty good for average middle-class Americans. The rise of suburbia, increase in expansion of the American middle class, really representing the good times that were coming to the United States by 1950 and that would largely characterize the entire decade, of course, not for everyone equally, but that nevertheless was a dominant sensibility at this time.

Documentary Audio
…Wheeling, West Virginia, the business district throbs with people, the attractive well-stocked stores downtown attracting crowds every day, signs of progress continue to take form. Life in the 20th century is being served.

Darren Dochuk
At the same time, there was this looming fear of rising communism globally, the incursion of communist forces in China, and then especially the Soviet Union and its ascent to a global power in the late 40s, early 50s. This was coupled with the other fear here, and that was of nuclear warfare, the increased power of the hydrogen bomb. The fact that the Soviets now possessed the same apocalyptic weaponry was, of course, also a looming fear.

There was both a real sense of progress and advancement in American society, but also of potential end times. By the late 40s, early 50s, Americans driven by this fear of infiltration by foreign communist influences—there were some Soviet spies were active in the United States to a degree, but this fear was very much accentuated. Famously, of course, HUAC House on American Activities Committee is by the late 40s calling forward Hollywood actors who they believed had associated with the Communist Party before World War II.

News Report
This is the hearing room of the House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities. They have staunchly continued their investigation, pursuing their stated beliefs that anyone who continued to be a communist after 1945 is guilty of high treason. “Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?”

Darren Dochuk
So, this was a groundswell that was building. You have individuals like Richard Nixon, young congressman from California, wielding his anti-communist credentials also to build his career. So, Joseph McCarthy was one of several riding the tide of anti-communism. It just so happens that he brought a certain level of charisma and connection with the people to take this campaign to a new, unanticipated level. Joseph McCarthy was, until 1950 largely, if not an unknown, certainly lesser known politician in American life. He had grown up in Wisconsin and risen through the ranks at the grassroots level there. He goes off to World War II. He would also serve in information gathering during the war as well. Again, nothing necessarily outsized in its drama or heroism, but he nevertheless would use that experience during World War II to heighten his own sense of importance. Once he appears in Wheeling, West Virginia, and delivers the speech to a group of Republican women, his career then rises in dramatic fashion. He captures media attention that even he couldn’t have predicted.

Joseph McCarthy
Today, the most dangerous enemy agent is not so much concerned with the secret information about weapons as he is with infiltrating the necessary departments of the government and shaping and controlling the actions of our nation, so that the enemy is progressively winning, winning without even firing a single shot.

Darren Dochuk
And through the next seven years becomes kind of the face of the anti-communist crusade in America. He really took what was already a grassroots movement of anti-communism, anti-com. Communist conservatism to a whole new level. McCarthy became more famous than the rest because he was willing to press the boundaries of respectable politics, if you will. I mentioned Richard Nixon as someone who was also kind of wielding his credentials as an anti-communist warrior, right, but Nixon very much played within the rules of the political establishment. McCarthy always prided himself on being a bit of an outsider. He was a Democrat at one time, and then becomes a Republican. He saw his politics, in other words, in kind of fluid terms, and he was able to adapt to the times, and he was savvy. He knew that the new era of politics in the 1950s would revolve around media, around representation, building a profile that could sell to the people.

Joseph McCarthy
One communist on the faculty of one university is one communist too many. Even if there are only one Communist in the State Department, that would still be one communist too many.

Darren Dochuk
How does McCarthy illustrate both a populist style, a populist strand of politics in American life, and by extension, how does that open the door to authoritarian rhetoric and an authoritarian style of politics? First of all, it’s important to note that populism itself is a broad canopy term. Prior to World War II, one could say that populism very much resonated on the liberal left of the spectrum, among Democrats, right. McCarthy was a product of Wisconsin, which had its own heritage of progressive populism that saw as its main target, its enemy, the wealthy and the rich, the 1% of Americans who held power over the other 99%. And that strand of radical populism would animate independents and Democratic politics right into the 1930s. After World War II, the populist style and the populist strand shifts to the right, and McCarthy himself represents that transition. He speaks on behalf of the people. This is kind of your typical populist rhetoric. He speaks as one of them. His own persona kind of taps into that notion that I, too, am just an average guy from Wisconsin, is also able to rally them around a set of concern, abstract fears of the other coming to America. And under his watch, and certainly as right-wing populism develops in the post-war period, increasingly that has to do with anti-immigration sentiments, with fears of a host of kind of non-Americans coming to this country and ruining it by bringing their own sets of values. Accompanying that is a sense of paranoia, a certain kind of apocalypticism as well, a fear that all might come undone at any moment should America, common people, average people not step up and fight. The authoritarian strain of all of this is who is left to lead the people, right? Yes, McCarthy can speak to them as one of them, but this sort of populism also demands, certainly welcomes, and celebrates the powerful charismatic leader who can come and reform the nation to save the nation. This political sensibility, therefore, leaves open and also encourages a type of strong leader that McCarthy purported to be, someone who can, again, bring order through top-down, heavy-handed tactics, all in the name of preserving democracy for average Americans.

Joseph McCarthy
I don’t care how high-pitched becomes the screaming and squealing of the left-wing element of press and radio. As long as I am in the Senate, this task is not going to become a dainty task. If anyone wants to come in and remove them in some dainty fashion, they’re welcome to it, but in the absence of that, if lumberjack tactics are the only kind of tactics that crowd understands, and take my word for it, those are the kind of tactics we’re going to use on them, as long as there is one there endangering the lives of 150 million American people.

Darren Dochuk
The 1950s is is an era of dramatic change in media, we see the rise of television, obviously, but press coverage itself, the new journalism kind of of the 1950s is something that McCarthy recognizes, much like some of our political leaders have recognized more recently with social media and the power of texting and tweeting, and so forth, to generate sentiment among the people, and McCarthy sensed that and built on that. He recognized how to utilize it to make sensational charges, for instance, to do so kind of last minute before the media could catch up to him with really kind of fact-based research. He was a master, again, of utilizing, manipulating, and weaponizing media for his own sake. That leaves a legacy, I think, to the present day. He was also a master at generating, not just playing on the existing fears of the day, fears of communism, fears of outsiders. He was able to accentuate them. He kind of reveled in fear-mongering. Anyone caught in the crosshairs faced severe consequences, which is why, of course, the Red Scare was so absolutely profoundly damaging to a large segment of Americans. He was eager to pit Americans against each other. He had a way of framing politics in “us versus them” terms, right. This is what you could say is a Manichaean worldview. All of politics, all of life, is a battle. McCarthy died early in 1957 a tragic end, really, with bad health plaguing him. He is also an outcast in Washington. He has taken his anti-elitism and charges of communism a bit too seriously, attacking the military, for instance, and being censored as a result.

US lawmaker
Look, you have done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of…?

Darren Dochuk
His death signals the end, really, of that period of McCarthyism. But McCarthy today, I think, is worth returning to as a historical subject, because it speaks to again the power of an individual like McCarthy within the political sphere to maneuver through popular democracy and use its own kind of mechanisms to fashion individual power within. Democracy is fragile, we know that, and McCarthy, I think, in many ways, as an individual, exposed that. More broadly, McCarthyism, in the period in which McCarthy operated, the early 1950s, illustrates other moments in recent American history when a sense of overriding fear and anxiety certainly captured the attention of a good portion, if not majority, of Americans at that time, and that led to generally a sense that the American project was coming undone, and something needed to be done quickly to rescue it. McCarthy offered that promise. I’m not saying McCarthyism is necessarily the answer to how we got to where we are, but I think returning to him and his political playbook, and also to the times in which he operated, the early 50s, this time of heightened uncertainty and fear is something that I think can resonate with us today.

Syrus Solo Jin
This episode was produced by Syrus Solo Jin and Daniel Story for Authoritarianism 101 part of the American Historical Review’s #AHRSyllabus project. For more info and additional resources, visit historians.org /a101.