McCarthyism: This Time It's Found a Home on the Left

In the past few weeks an old term has made its return to American political discourse. That word is "McCarthyism." Critics of the current war complain that there is a move in this country to silence dissent. They point to the refusal of radio stations to play music by the Dixie Chicks, who expressed their shame that the president is, like them, a Texan. They direct our attention to the recent firing of Phil Donahue, an antiwar liberal, from MSNBC. They claim that teachers have been taken to task for making antiwar statements in their classrooms. By invoking the name of Joseph McCarthy, many in the antiwar movement hope to portray themselves as innocent victims of hysteria, brave souls who dare to challenge a jingoistic culture.

But is this really what McCarthyism was all about? To be sure, the original McCarthyites were no doubt, broadly speaking, conservatives, and certainly anticommunists. And yes, they did take aim at liberals. But of course there were conservatives and anticommunists who wanted nothing at all to do with Joe McCarthy and his tactics. One might argue that responsible figures like President Eisenhower and Senator Robert A. Taft should have done more to restrain McCarthy, but they were never truly part of his movement.

To characterize today's pro-administration forces as "McCarthyite" misses what truly distinguished the original McCarthyites from the broader community of conservatives and anticommunists-that is, their hostility toward "the Establishment." Those who rallied behind Joe McCarthy's crusade were largely lower middle class, and more often than not of Irish, Italian, and Eastern European descent. They resented the fact that American politics and society were dominated by upper class WASPs who seemed too eager to make accommodations with communism. They concocted elaborate conspiracy theories allegedly proving that the State Department and other federal agencies were under communist control. They argued that the mainstream media were not to be trusted; that the newspapers were havens for "parlor pinks," and the publishing industry was overrun with "commies" and "fellow travelers." They railed against American corporations who wanted to trade with "Red China," accusing them of dealing in "blood money."

To be sure, there are still people on the American Right who continue to harbor such fantasies-one finds them in organizations such as the John Birch Society and the various "militias" that we heard so much about in the mid-1990s. But in the context of the current war, the essence of McCarthyism-that is, hatred of "the Establishment" and espousal of conspiracy theories-is today almost the exclusive domain of certain elements among the antiwar Left. Instead of "Red-baiters," they might more appropriately be called "Red, White, and Blue-baiters."

An examination of some of the rhetoric heard during antiwar demonstrations confirms this. There are suggestions that American policy is secretly being made by Texas oil companies, or, more strikingly, Israel (a clear point of comparison to the McCarthyite accusation that the Soviets were directly running U.S. diplomacy). There are other conspiracy theories as well-about Halliburton and the "Carlyle Group" orchestrating the war (how long can it be before the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations are mentioned?), about the allegedly "stolen" election of 2002, about how the television networks and other mainstream media outlets are owned by military contractors, and hence hopelessly biased in favor of war (Katie Couric-Merchant of Death?). And behind it all one detects, above all, a seething resentment of those that hold power in America; just the sort of resentment that Joe McCarthy was so successful in exploiting in his day.

Of course, there was one major difference between the McCarthyites of old and those on the modern Left-the former ones managed to find their way into a position of power, from which they could launch investigations and ruin lives. By contrast, the antiwar protesters appear completely impotent-they have failed even to win over the support of college students.

Yet there is nothing fundamentally inconsistent about being anti-Establishment and holding political power. Indeed, that is what made the McCarthyism of the early 1950s such a notable event-a demagogue who spoke for a significant disaffected group was able, for a brief time, to achieve a position of authority. So-called "responsible" individuals were quick to denounce McCarthy-at least those who were not afraid of him-or distance themselves from him in one way or another. The mainstream media in particular hated McCarthy, even as newspaper publishers realized that he made for excellent copy. And within a few years the U.S. Senate censured him, bringing an end to the entire unfortunate episode.

There will be those who will immediately object to any effort to associate the Left with McCarthyism, but is the ability to move from the paranoid Right to the paranoid Left (and back again) really so difficult to understand? The fascist parties of Europe in the 1930s frequently commented on their success in winning recruits from among socialists and communists; indeed, Benito Mussolini himself had been a socialist. Moreover, in the United States quite a few of those who supported McCarthy in the 1950s had been radicals of some sort in the 1920s and 1930s. Once one has demonstrated the ability to believe conspiracy theories, it soon makes little difference whether they are theories of the Left or theories of the Right.

Skeptics will no doubt also point to another apparent difference between the McCarthyites of the 1950s and many of today's antiwar protesters-the latter do not seem to be attempting to silence their opponents by suggesting that they are engaged in treason against their country. It was convenient for the original McCarthyites to connect critics of U.S. foreign policy with a foreign power, and it would be difficult to do this today. Today's antiwar forces hurl about terms like "racist" and "imperialist" as hurtful slurs, but they hardly carry with them the suggestion of treason. Moreover, all but the most radical opponents of the administration seem to recognize the anti-Semitic implications of claiming that the administration is riddled with Israeli agents.

On the other hand, the fact that the protesters have been so much in the minority might cause us to overlook how this situation could change if a few of the more extreme among them found their way into positions of authority in the Federal Government. The organization of corporate America, with its vast network of subsidiaries and stockholders, offers radicals a structure just as suggestive as-though even less relevant than-the flow charts of communist front groups and fellow travelers that the original McCarthyites liked to display. The recent accusations against Richard Perle, suggesting that his concerns about homeland security are really driven by his investments in certain high-tech companies, points the way to the sort of smear campaign that progressives could get behind. "Do you now, or have you ever held stock in Halliburton?" could become the catch phrase of the "Red, White, and Blue-baiters."

This is certainly not to suggest that all opponents of current U.S. foreign policy are closet McCarthyites. However, it does mean that antiwar activists should examine their own attitudes before invoking the legacy of Joe McCarthy as a slur against their political enemies. More importantly, thoughtful critics of the war ought to pay close attention to the company they keep, and the leaders they support. America no more needs the McCarthyism of the Left than it needs a resurgence of its right-wing counterpart.