Joseph Mccarthy Corruption

Joseph McCarthy and Donald Trump are two demagogues who have inflicted fear upon Americans as a way to consolidate their own political power. A Junior Senator from Wisconsin in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Joseph McCarthy, intuitively understood that Americans tend to fear what they don’t understand. They fear those who don’t look familiar. They fear the unknown. During the Cold War he exploited American’s fear of Communism in order to create a cult-like following. Sadly, seventy years later, the U.S. is once again being governed by those same fears with the election of President Donald Trump. Rather than invoking the evils of Communism, Trump preys on Americans’ fear of Muslims, Mexicans and any other immigrant group who, like
Murrow, CBS’ most renowned journalist, who famously counterattacked Joseph McCarthy’s pervasively corrupt campaign. This was a rare feat, as most politicians and journalists witnessed how McCarthy could shatter their careers, lives, and reputations. Murrow attacked McCarthy and McCarthyism on his half-hour program See it Now, which he co-produced with Fred Friendly and Joe Wershba. In one of the boldest statements on network television, the team shed light on McCarthy’s disturbing speeches and corruption, shattering the illusion of McCarthy’s power: “the actions of the Junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his, he didn't create this situation of fear, he merely exploited it, and rather successfully. Cassius was right, the fault dear Brutus is not in our stars, but in ourselves” (Goodnight, and Goodluck, Clooney). It is worth noting that the Senator had the instincts, the intuition, and perfect pitch to know how to catch the eye of the American public, making it difficult for journalists to attack him and his ideas. For Murrow, going on national television to combat McCarthy’s lies seemed the only way to gain the country’s attention. When McCarthy began targeting the U.S. Army, claiming Communist infiltration, the nation finally turned on the Senator. This proved to be a fatal blow for McCarthy as he underestimated Americans’ pride in their armed services, the vanguard of American liberty. It is up for debate whether or not McCarthy’s popularity was already falling when Murrow attacked him on CBS’ See it Now program, but regardless, Murrow’s attack on the Wisconsin Senator was an inspiring act of bravery. In George Clooney’s Goodnight, and Good Luck, David Strathairn perfected the role of Murrow —an iconic and well-spoken journalist who placed his career on