Instant Access To 100,000+ Essays!

Throughout the 1940s and 1950s America was overwhelmed with concerns about the threat of Communism growing in Eastern Europe and China. It was the height of the Cold War and Americans began to fear that Communists may infiltrate and take over the United States government. Capitalizing on those concerns, a young Senator named Joseph McCarthy made a public accusation that more than two hundred "card-carrying" Communists had been working in the United States government. During a span of about 4 years, McCarthy accused hundreds of innocent people of being Communist with little or no concrete evidence. Fear caused the American people to succumb to the preposterous charges brought forth by McCarthy. Though eventually his accusations were proven to be untrue, and he was censured by the Senate for unbecoming conduct, his zealous campaigning ushered in one of the most repressive times in 20th-century American politics, known by the term of McCarthyism. Since the 1950s, McCarthyism has been referred to as the unfair tactic of accusing people of disloyalty without providing evidence. Fifty years later, American people are faced with a new concern: Terrorism. In the wake of 9/11, the United States government had signed into law the USA P