{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "description": "History may not repeat itself, but it rhymes. Our current political moment is one that rhymes with the red scare . Clay Risen does an admirable job covering the history of and events around the post-war red scare and the hysteria fueled House Un-American Activities Committee . Joseph McCarthy often gets pegged as the face of the committee but it preceded him and stumbled on for a bit after him. He was one of many vile politicians that have cropped up throughout American history and his strident accusation of disloyalty was enough to warrant a dictionary definition of a word based on his name. Unscrupulously accusing people of disloyalty. We don't have committees now and I doubt we'll see them — the current administration's approach to dealing with disagreement, protest and dissension is more the denial of a trial and unquestioned rendition to a gulag variety. Republicans have an undeniable streak of claiming the sole right to patriotism and patriotic behavior while engaging the exact opposite. Much (if not all) of what they do is projection. The accused aren't disloyal, they're speaking freely and critically. They're dissenting from Republican orthodoxy. In a country that professes to cherish free speech and open discussion of ideas, they allow for anything but. They want free speech for themselves and oppression for dissenters. They want the freedom to torture and belittle captive audiences. That is un-American. It's American to disagree, it's American to discuss a broad range of ideas, it's un-American to quash them. It was a tension then, it's a tension now. The red scare ruined lives and Joseph McCarthy embraced that pursuit. He deserves the revulsion that comes with the mention of his name and is no better than the paranoid and vindictive J. Edgar Hoover. I learned a fair bit about the scare before McCarthy's entry into and usurpation of the spotlight and it's much-needed fall and dissolution. One of the more engaging books on US history I've read through recently and it's one of the many dark chapters in the country's history.",
  "path": "/reading/books/182141808/red-scare",
  "publishedAt": "2025-04-09T00:00:00Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:sttgf52vkk46f6yuknvqxvgh/site.standard.publication/self",
  "tags": [
    "politics",
    "history",
    "nonfiction"
  ],
  "title": "Red Scare"
}