How Did Mccarthyism Contribute To The Rise Of Paranoia

During the age of McCarthyism, countless people had their lives and careers destroyed due to having connections with communist or even their party. After the Cold War, Americans needed someone or something to blame for the situation and that turned out to be communism. This created the idea of communism being evil, and the illusion of Americans having to stay away from it. If you were affiliated with McCarthyism, countless Americans lost their jobs, went to jail, or harassed. If you accidently got on the wrong mailing lists or had wrong acquaintances that created an outrage. Anti-communism created paranoia tremendously throughout the United States, making it harder for Americans to live an ordinary lifestyle.

“It is hard to have a witch – hunt without witches,” this sentence is
(class) Creating the secret members of the party, this was created by members who wanted to insure their careers and reputation. (class) This tactic was ammunition against the communist party whenever the government found out about a secret members, because this gave them the idea of what were they trying to hide. (class) Within the entertainment world, the anti-Communist activists had rooted themselves within the industry making it harder to be successful. (Schrecker, 101) The Screen Actors Guild (SAG), headed at the time Ronald Reagan, instituted loyalty oaths on their members and joined the studios in mission to purge the film industry of Communist. (Schrecker, 101) In 1951, the SAG informed their members by saying, “If any actor by his own actions outside of union activities has so offended American public opinion that he has made himself unsaleable at the box office.” (Schrecker, 101) A reasonable amount feared being identified with anything that seemed “too radical”, and people to the left were either “unheard or under attack”. (Schrecker,